


Wait

by sidnihoudini



Category: Good Charlotte
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-14
Updated: 2004-06-14
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:18:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 62,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1233046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't love you like I love you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Straight from the archives, totally unedited. Cringe with me, everyone.

People overestimate lyrics. 

I mean, fuck yeah, there’s nothing like an amazing song to make you feel empty or happy or whatever you want, but come the fuck on. There are so many good bands out there that have the crappiest lyrics ever but are so good at playing their instruments that it doesn’t even matter. Every so-called music elitist I meet I want to sock in the teeth, I fucking hate it. I exhale through my nose and push the play button on my price reduced, $19.99 Wal-Mart discman, swearing under my breath that if the track doesn’t play I’ll just fucking throw it out the window. I can feel the train lurching under my body, and thank God this mother fucker is finally going. I’ve only been sitting here forty minutes.

I narrow my eyes and turn my attention to the window beside my seat, looking out over the Maryland train station. There’s nobody here really at all, even if it is mid-July, because nobody is stupid enough to get a one way ticket to…well, anywhere, really. I feel like I want to kick this fucking CD player though, one way ticket or not, for being a bastard and eating my batteries. But seriously, what can I expect right? I tear my eyes away from the ‘scenery’ outside my window and study the little LCD light up display, and fucking great. Mother fucking piece of shit, all you can tell me is error? I’ll give you an error when I throw you up against the-

“402, Leaving Annapolis, Maryland. Final call for boarding.” I look up when a crackled voice comes over the speakers, and Jesus Christ I thought we were going already. I pull the head phones off my head and throw them onto the seat beside me, tossing the rest of the player down on top of it. Fucker eats batteries like a fat kid eats cake. “Last call, 402.”

Leaning my head back against the head rest of the red and brown, completely trying-to-be-fancy-but-not-at-all-pulling-it-off chair, my eyes trail up and down the walls of the interior, looking for a clock or something. I never bothered buying a wrist watch, never thought time was important. I still don’t, in fact I just want an estimate for when I complain to the mother fucking attendants about what the hell is taking us so long to just go. I just want out of here, away from this city as quickly as possible.

I close my eyes and Christ you’d think they’d at least dim the lights in here a little bit, considering it’s pitch black outside, not to mention this is the last round trip they’re making from Annapolis to wherever the hell it is we’re going. I didn’t even bother to check, just picked the one that was leaving the soonest so I could get away from all this. An attendant dressed in a royal blue skirt and shirt, of course all tucked in with gold accessories, walks past me, and I reach up and grab her arm.

“Hey, where’s this headed anyways?”

She looks at me and raises an eyebrow, pushing her cart filled of cheap water bottles and tourist maps closer towards the cabin that separates this passenger car to the next. I don’t think she believes that I have no idea where I’m going.

“You serious?” She questions, and you’d think someone with this tacky of a work uniform wouldn’t be so fucking arrogant. For a woman, anyways, she’s pretty cocky. 

I nod and repeat my question, a hint of the east coast accent seeping through as I round my letters off differently then she does. “Yeah. If I wasn’t serious, I wouldn’t have asked.” I state, and her green eyes flicker. For someone who’s job is basically dealing with customers, she isn’t so great at the whole ‘the customer is always right’ thing. “So where does it go?” I ask again. “Washington?”

She shakes her head and hands me a bottled water, and her nails are disgusting, plastic and shaped like a square, bright red polish decorating them. “Baltimore.” She finally says, “Baltimore is where the track ends out, kid.”


	2. Paper or Plastic?

“Ben, I need you in till five.” A crackly voice that comes over the PA system says, and I can’t tell if it’s my boss or just some random co-worker because it’s so distorted and squeaky. I sigh and finish stacking the cans of tomato soup as quickly as I can, and over the last six months I’ve learned how to make a mean tin can pyramid and hang the sixty-six cents sale sign perfectly. One of the top fucking bag boys in the store, in fact I moved up to shelf stocking just last week. 

Kicking the boxes out of the way, I wipe my hands on the bright green apron I’m forced to wear and hurry up to the front, where the cash registers are. Mindy is there waiting for me, one hand on her hip as she studies her fingernails on the other, her eyes narrowing as she finds a jagged edge or some shit like that. I’ll admit, definitely not the biggest Mindy fan right here, but what are you gonna do right, it’s a co-worker. You can’t exactly put up a big bitch fight in the middle of the store.

I force a smile at the old lady that’s standing in front of the counter, a bewildered look on her face that’s no doubt from something that was said. Mindy turns to me and rolls her eyes, then turns back to the cash register and resumes what is literally her job of pushing buttons and giving change. I keep my tight lipped smile up as I bag the groceries, not saying a word to anybody because that’s not my job. All I do is put the food in the bag. The end. 

…

“I realize that but…” I trail off and press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. This happened every Wednesday, when Mom made her little weekly I-still-care-about-you-really-I-do call. “No Mom, you don’t get it. I’m not coming back. Okay? Mama no you don’t…”

She still continued to fight with me though, saying that as soon as this little ‘independence’ phase I fell into passed, I’d come home. But if I could just get it through her head that home just isn’t an option right now… 

“Ben, your family is here.” I nod my head slowly, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against a wall. “Chris is here too, Ben, and he misses you. He phones me every day to see how you’re doing.”

“And what do you tell him?” I exclaim, my eyes widening suddenly as I sit up, trying to balance the phone on one knee and hold the receiver to my ear with the other hand. “Mama, what do you tell him!”

“I tell him you miss him too.” She whispers. I close my eyes, trying to take a second to digest what she just said. There is no way in fuck that she is doing this to me, I mean, aren’t mothers supposed to look out for you? God damnit, no fucking wonder where I got my thick skull from, she hasn’t been listening to me this whole time I’ve been telling her… “Ben he really does miss you, and he’s sorry that he-“

“Mom you don’t understand.” I say, cutting her off, and my voice sounds so pathetic. I twist the phone cord in between my fingers and lean forward on my seat, studying the carpeted floor and the toes of my shoes. “I don’t know why you won’t listen to me, I mean, even the psychiatrist talked to you and you still just don’t get it.”

“I just don’t see how Christopher could do something like that, he’s such a good boy, Ben. You two are perfect for each other, and all I want to see is my youngest son happy.” She states, and I hear my Father come into the kitchen, yelling a hello before he realizes she’s on the phone.

“Is Dad there?” I ask, even though I can hear him in the background. I hear him ask Mom if it’s me, and I really miss him. We were always the closest in our family, my two brothers, they were always more of Mama’s boys. “Can I talk to him?”

“Sure Ben, just hold on a second, he’s taking his jacket off.” She says, and I nod even though she can’t see me. I can hear the dog running around, happy that my Dad’s home. “Oh! Are you still working that job you said you got at the supermarket?” 

“Yeah Mom, I am.” 

“I’m glad you’re supporting yourself. Oh, here’s your Father.” I can hear shuffling, before the phone is handed over to my Dad. I run a hand through my hair and lean against the back of the sofa, crossing one leg over, and then setting them both down. 

“Hey Dad.”

“How’s the real world treating you Ben?” He asks, and he’s so proud of me, I can tell my the sound of his voice. Pretty fucking funny, actually, his eighteen year old son is the first to leave, even though his eldest is twenty five and still living upstairs.

“Honest answer?”

“We’ve always been honest with each other right?” He asks, and I can hear him walking out of the kitchen, probably into the living room because that’s where his favorite recliner is, and Mom will stay in the kitchen making dinner, so he’ll have some privacy.

“Yeah,” I whisper, pinching the bridge of my nose. “No. It’s been pretty shitty.”

“You coming home?” He asks carefully, because I know he doesn’t want to sound like Mom, but still wants to ask all the same. I sigh and shake my head.

“No… I’m just gonna you know, see if it gets better.” I start, and I almost wish I was back there, sitting on the couch watching TV, instead of here, in this cheap as ass rented apartment, all by myself with the lights turned off since I can’t afford electricity. But then I see the last five years of my life flash across the backs of my eyes, and suddenly I’m really happy right where I am. “Anything’s better then there though, right?”

“I know. We miss you, your Mom thinks you’re coming home at the end of the month for your birthday.” He chuckles, and believe me, I know. Last time she phoned, she asked if I wanted vanilla or chocolate cake. 

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing, she doesn’t listen.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I sigh, and we sit in silence for a few minutes, and I can hear him turn the TV on. In the background, a sports announcer’s voice starts talking about the last three games of the Pro NFL League. Whatever the fuck that means. I pick the loose thread on my khakis, and listen to the way the whole building sounds like it’s being flooded because it always happens when the person upstairs turns on their shower. I bite my lip and run the question through my head a million times before I ask, “Um hey Dad?”

“Yeah Ben.” I hear him turn the volume down a couple of notches.

My stomach feels like it’s full of butterflies, the bad kind, not the want-to-have-this-forever type. Bringing one hand up, I nervously scratch the back of my neck and why is this still so hard for me to talk about after all this time? I guess ‘time’ doesn’t really qualify for six months, especially the healing kind. Either way, I push the feeling down so I can talk properly. “Has Chris been phoning?”

“Yeah, he has.” He says after a minute, and I wonder if he’ll tell me the truth, or tell me the version that won’t scare me into staying up at night and checking over my shoulder every few minutes.

“Has Mom really been talking to him?”

“She still thinks that you two are only on a break, and that you’re not…you…you know.” His voice is careful, and I can feel the breath hitch in the back of my throat. I nod again.

“Dad please, can you make sure that…”

“Of course, Ben.” He says, right away, and I’m positive that he’ll do everything he can to take care of me. At least my Father acts like a Father, even though my Mom is a airhead. “I know.”

“Alright. Um…I, I’m gonna go get some dinner and stuff.” I say, trailing off as my eyes slide to my bedroom door. I can hear my Mom calling everyone, saying the food is ready in the background. Somehow without me there, home still sounds like home. I don’t know whether to be happy that they don’t think about me, or sad that they’ve forgotten what it’s like without me there already.

“Okay son, I’ll talk to you soon. Phone me if you need to, alright?” 

“Yeah, I will. Bye Dad.”

…

“Paper or plastic?” I ask, and I can’t help the bored tone that seeps into my words. I look up at the young woman that’s standing in front of the counter, punching her PIN number into the ATM console. 

“Plastic, thanks.”

I nod and bend over, grabbing a handful of plastic bags with the store’s logo printed on them from the shelf, and open one up. I start packing the groceries into it, snickering a bit to myself when I see the tube of heated lube she bought. God who would buy that with their groceries anyway? Yeah, here’s some butter, loaf of bread, milk, heated lube, store brand Cola, thanks…

Mindy puts the receipt into one of the bags and thanks her, already moving onto the next person in line as LubeGirl tries to pile all of her bags into a cart. I force a smile and lift some of the bags off of the counter, cause I’m a bag boy, not a fucking cart loader helper. Either way she manages to shuffle away before the next person’s groceries come through, and wow I have such an exciting life. I’m really surprised I haven’t died from a heart attack yet. 

I put the extra bags away under the counter and sneak a glance at the massive clock that’s above the till. Still half an hour left on my shift. Yeah along with my exciting life I have lots of things to do after work, what the fuck why do you care what time it is? You don’t. That’s why you don’t have a watch, dick head.

“Paper or plastic?” I recite, looking up at the next customer. This one actually catches me off guard. Instead of the typical faded clothes that everyone seems to live in around here, with their brown hair neatly combed on top of their heads, this guy has clothes that are so fucking tacky I don’t know whether to laugh or go blind, and his hair has been dyed so much it’s kind of just everywhere, not to mention the red color that I’m assuming isn’t natural. He looks like fucking Ronald McDonald on crack.

“Paper.” He smiles, handing a couple of bills to Mindy. She takes them, tacky nails and all, and starts hitting buttons on the cash register, not even taking a second glance at this…thing. I nod and get some of the paper bags out, blinking a couple times to make sure my eyes are still located inside of my skull. I stack the nine boxes of macaroni and cheese that are on sale this week, two for a dollar, and the Rolling Stone magazine inside of one bag and push it across the counter, waiting as Mindy drops the receipt inside.

I barely manage to force another smile as he grins at me and takes his change, picking the bag up before he starts toward the glass doors at the front of the store. I look at Mindy and she shrugs, popping her gum once more before she starts ringing the next customer’s groceries through.


	3. Cigarettes are Addictive

“I’ll have a Egg McMuffin, two hash browns, and one coffee.” I say, pulling my wallet out of the back pocket of my pants. The teenage boy behind the cash register punches in the appropriate buttons, and I take a second to admire the paper crown that’s sitting on top of his head, one of the recent promotional materials that this particular McDonalds has been giving away. 

“Is that all Sir?” He asks, squeaky voice and alarmingly red t-shirt pulling me out of my thoughts. About paper crowns. Fuck, what am I made out of? 

“Yeah, that’s it.” I flip my wallet open and pull out a ten, because seriously how much could plastic food like this cost? I glance around the restaurant as the kid punches in a few more buttons and the cash tray opens. It’s still pretty early, there really is nobody in here except for a couple of people, who I could only imagine have been here most of all night. Well, judging by the way they’re passed out in the booths at least.

“That’ll be $6.11.” I hand him the ten and wait to get my change before he asks, “Is that for here or to go?”

“To go, thanks.”

…

I drink what’s left of my coffee and toss the styrofoam cup into the bag. The only thing sadder then eating by yourself on your apartment complex’s front steps, is eating by yourself in a McDonalds at quarter to ten in the morning. I get off of the cold cement steps and start down to towards where the garbage cans are. I manage to locate them, and after pretending not to notice the way a raccoon has obviously gotten into one of the bags over night, I drop my bag inside and wipe my hands on my pants. Other people’s garbage is disgusting.

I’ve got work at one, and I’m guessing it’s just eleven now, so no rush. My hands find their way into my pant pockets as I make my way down the street, and Baltimore is pretty nice I guess. It’s less ghetto then Annapolis was at least, believe it or not. One day I plan to get out of here, move to some big city like Boston or New York. I don’t really know what I’ll do there though, I mean I lack talent in just about everything that exists, except for lifting old ladies groceries and taking them to their cars.

I’m only eighteen though right, I mean that counts for something. I guess that the whole “I’m only eighteen, I don’t need a long term job yet,” would be a better card to pull if I was still living at home. I glance back at my apartment building, red brick and white painted trim seeming a lot more menacing then it was when I found out it was only a couple hundred bucks to rent out a month. I kind of want my own place, or at least in a better building. Fuck who am I kidding, all I really want is for my fucking electricity to work so I can do more then sit in the dark when I get home.

Crossing the street, I try and decide where I want to go. It’s pretty depressing sitting at home all day, staring at the cracks in the wall. And it’s not like I’ve got enough money to go and have real fun, so I usually just end up wandering down to one of the kids parks and sitting on a swing until it’s time to go to work. It reminds me of my childhood, when not everything was quite so terrifying.

…

I don’t fucking get this guy. He’s the one from the other day, the one who bought all that macaroni and cheese. I can see he’s in line again and poking around in a magazine rack. I distantly wonder if he just moved around here, cause I’ve never seen him before and all the customers in this store are basically regulars. I mean, I’ve seen all of them at least once in the few months I’ve been working here. I guess I can say the same for this guy now too. 

“Paper or plastic?” I ask, as a older lady comes up to the counter. She’s dressed completely in this blue snowsuit, even though it’s barely cold outside, and she’s wearing red mittens and a matching hat. Her forehead barely makes it over the counter, and I think for the first time in my whole life, I’m actually taller then somebody. She’s got a scowl on her face through, and tosses a cloth bag up at me, one of those cheap and faded ones she probably got twenty years ago. As she smiles at Mindy and hands her the check book she produces from her purse, I open up the bag and try to choke back the old lady smell as I pile her groceries in. 

I try to smile as politely as I can as I give her the bag, even though she just takes it from me and shuffles off, not saying a word, and right away Mindy is giggling and looking at me. 

“What the hell was that about?” I wonder, and she just shrugs and starts ringing through the next customer’s groceries. It’s that guy again, and I’d take the opportunity to make fun of his hair some more, but he’s got a hat pulled over it so I can’t. He smiles at me though, and pulls out his wallet right away, and it’s so beat up and worn I kind of wonder if it’s really capable of holding change at all. Either way, no time to be studying the weirdos this store brings in, cause God knows there’s enough of them.

“Paper or plastic?” I ask, my eyes darting up to look at his. There’s no way in hell this kid is for real, his eyes are like, purple. Contacts. It’s gotta be contacts. I mean who has eyes like that, purple and blue with gold around the edges. 

“Paper.” 

I nod and bend down, getting a few of the paper bags to pile his groceries into. I see he’s got another five boxes of macaroni, and does this guy not know how to take advantages of sales? Seriously, two for a dollar. Not four plus one random dollar fifteen one. Whatever. 

“Sir, there’s something wrong with your card. It won’t go through.” Mindy says, running his bank card through the machine again, but it still comes up with an error.

“Oh. Damn, see I forgot I had it in my pocket yesterday, and I put it through the wash by accident. I tried to iron it out, but I guess it didn’t work.” He shrugs, and what the mother fucking? Is this guy for real? I mean, am I imagining that there’s actually a person that’s alive and exists like this man standing in front of me? 

“I don’t think you can just iron bank cards out.” I say, before I even realize that my mouth is moving. He shrugs and adjusts the sleeve of his shirt, not really looking too concerned with the whole deal. Wow I’m seriously starting to wonder if this guy somehow managed to escape from the psychiatry ward a couple blocks over. What self respecting person would wear a orange sweat shirt with what seems to look like cut up socks on their arms? And in public none the less.

“If you want, we can hold your groceries here while you run to the bank. It’s three blocks over, right on 43rd.” Mindy says, pushing a couple buttons on the cash register to cancel the purchase. I just kind of stand there and look between the two of them, as the guy takes his bank card back and carefully slips it into his wallet. I really don’t think it’s gonna get anymore fucked up then it already is, buddy.

He nods and says that he’ll just be a few minutes. Both me and Mindy watch as he jogs out of the store, and I notice the way the cuffs of his pants are all ripped up because they’re way too long and he hasn’t bothered to fix them, I guess. Either that or he just doesn’t notice. I turn to Mindy and she shrugs at me, pulling out the now void receipt and throwing it into the garbage. I get his groceries and move them to the side so I don’t get everything mixed up.

I figure this guy is a stoner, because who acts like that and gets enough macaroni and cheese to feed a small population? I mean is fourteen boxes of macaroni really necessary over the period of what, four days? Eh, then again. With this guy I wouldn’t be so surprised.

…

I don’t smoke, really. Okay. That’s a complete and total fucking lie. I smoke when I get the money to buy cigarettes. Which is, virtually never, but still more often then that chick who’ll have one breath of smoke when she goes to a club and then calls herself a smoker. The smell of smoke reminds me of my childhood, I had an Aunt that smoked everywhere. Whenever you saw her, she’d have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Her whole house smelled like smoke, and every time I visited on Christmas break with my Mom, I’d come home smelling like I lived in a nicotine factory for half my life.

I take a deep drag of my cigarette, leaning my elbows on the ledge of the window as I watch the street underneath me. Nobody is out, hell I’d imagine it’s approaching midnight, but I don’t have work tomorrow, so I’m taking the opportunity to just exist without having to worry about something for an hour. Every now and then a person will walk up the street, and I mean, where do people walk when it’s this late out? Especially in Baltimore, Christ. I flick the butt of my cigarette onto the street below me and straighten myself up, closing the window carefully, because the superintendent warned me that if you push on the glass the wrong way, it’ll just pop out. 

After I making sure I lock it, twice, I grab my pack of smokes and put them in my jacket, then fumble around in the dark until I find my flashlight. Pretty crappy way to be living, but at least I’m here and I have my own bed, even if it is cold at night. I set the flashlight on the floor and toe my shoes off, carefully setting them in a shoebox and closing the lid, so that when I wake up spiders won’t have decided to live in them. I set the shoebox on the only other piece of furniture in the room – a rickety old table that I got from a garage sale for twenty bucks – and put my lighter on top of that, so I won’t forget where I put it. My Dad always used to tell me I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached to my neck.

I get undressed slowly, because what’s the rush? It’s only me, there’s no love of my life, or one night stand for that matter, laying in my bed waiting for me. I pull everything off and put it in their right spots – shirt folded on the chair, pants hung over the back of it – and climb into bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin before I reach down to the floor and grab my flashlight, flicking the button off and blinking my eyes a few times to adjust as the room floods with shadows and darkness again. A day in the life, right?


	4. Subtotaling is Hard to Learn

“Ben, can I see you in my office please?” I look up from the shelf of frozen dinners I’m stocking and nod, and I’m pretty damned sure there’s a complete look of surprise on my face. The only time the boss ever calls you out is when you’re ‘not an asset to the business anymore.’ Well, as much as a bag boy slash shelf stocker can be.

“Sure thing.” I say, nodding a bit and wiping my hands on my apron. My boss, he’s alright I guess. After going to like, literally a hundred job interviews within three weeks after I first got here, this is the only guy that hired me. I leave the box of frozen dinners that are yet to be stocked, making sure I push it up against the shelf so nobody trips or runs their cart into it, and catch up to Mr. Carver, smiling at a few customers as we pass them by on the way to his office. 

We walk through the employee’s room, and Mindy is just arriving, hanging her jacket up and tying her apron around her waist. She sends a tight lipped smile at the two of us, and hopefully she can do without her bag boy for a couple minutes. I don’t think our shift starts for another ten minutes anyway, looks like for once she was actually early. 

Mr. Carver shuts the door to his office behind us and gestures at me to have a seat in the chair at front of his desk as he walks around and lowers himself into his fancy leather one. Dude this guy owns a little chain of grocery stores. How did he end up with a leather chair? 

“I actually wanted to talk to you about your schedule.” 

“Oh. Okay.” I nod, relaxing a bit in the seat. At least he isn’t giving me the old kick in the ass. Maybe I should try and get more shifts, I mean I have nothing else holding me down, and a little more money never hurt anyone. Especially me, Mr. Lives in the Dark and Eats at McDonalds. One day I’ll get enough money to afford the eight hundred dollar a month apartments downtown, in what’s known as the artsy part of the city. I mean I’m completely retarded to the whole world of art and everything cultured, but it just seems like a really comfortable place to live. 

“We’ve got a clerk position opening up at the end of the month, because Mindy’s going to college-“

“Mindy got into a school? A real one?” I interrupt, without even thinking. My boss laughs softly and grins at me, and he’s got those wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, the ones that appear when you’re too happy and you laugh too much. I don’t think I’ll ever have those, even if I live to be ninety years old.

He’s still smiling, but he shakes his head and hands me a sheet with different information on it, about getting the position. I look it over, and it’s got basic general guidelines and the customer’s rights and the worker’s code of conduct, and stuff like that. “Anyways, I know you’re kind of in between doing different things here, but this would be six days a week, for at least two hours a day.”

“That’s fine.” I say right away, moving my eyes off the paper to look at his face. “You realize I have no idea how to work a cash register though, right?” I ask, raising one eyebrow. He laughs and nods, saying that before Mindy leaves, he’ll get her to train me and do the whole nine yards. “Okay, that’s really cool. Thanks Mr. Carver.”

“Not a problem, Ben. Come see me at the end of your shift and we’ll get your time table set up.”

…

“Seriously, Mom. I don’t think you gave it to me. I’m looking through my stuff and I can’t find it.” I state, holding the phone between my shoulder and chin as I sift through my drawer full of shit. 

My Mom phoned me, probably twenty minutes ago now, in a complete panic because she couldn’t find my birth certificate. See my Mom, she’s always been one of those people that starts new projects, and as of late she’s decided to make a family tree. Whenever I talk to my Dad, she’s either on the computer doing research, or in her craft room pasting pictures of our relatives into this scrap book she got for the whole thing. 

Apparently as she was looking through all of her stuff, she realized that at some point, the document certifying my whole actual existence, was gone. “Is it really that important that you have it right now? I mean I’m pretty sure I can call and get a new copy, cause I don’t see it here.”

“Yes, what if something happens to you and I need it?” She asks stubbornly, and I can hear her shuffling around. I bet she’s in Dad’s office, going through his papers and drawers upon drawers full of old newspapers and magazines. I never got why he could never throw them out, but I know for a fact he’s even got store catalogs from twenty years ago. Mom used to bitch about it all the time.

“Mom, I never packed it.” I state, running a hand through my hair. Leave it up to my Mother to call at eight in the morning on the only day I get off work. I hear her sigh on the other end as she tells me that I must have it, because she doesn’t. “Mom I left with one knap sack full of clothes. I didn’t exactly fucking think to pack my birth certificate.”

“Don’t swear at me, Benjamin.” She says, completely disregarding the fact that I’m so obviously right. I sigh and mumble a ‘sorry’ out of nothing more then habit, and sit on my mattress next to the box of my possessions. I don’t have much, really. The only clothes I have here are a couple t-shirts and pairs of pants, and I wash them one block over, at the Laundromat. I try to go every Sunday night, but sometimes I forget and wake up the next morning with no clean pants. “Oh!” 

”What? Did you find it?” I ask, and I can’t help the dull tone that seeps into my voice. I close the lid of the box, and I’m so glad I didn’t bring all of my possessions with me. It’s just extra baggage that I don’t need, and in situations like this, I’d probably find some tiny object that reminded me of a moment in my life I had hoped to forget. I hear more shuffling on the other end of the line, and I kind of just want to crawl into bed and sleep for a month.

“I thought I looked in this box.” She says, and then chuckles to herself. All I do is roll my eyes and try to figure out how I’m going to get this massive assed box back into my closet, on the top shelf none the less. “It was in here along with you and Chris’ prom pictures.”

And there it is. The memory I didn’t want to remember, the moment I wanted to keep locked in a box and forget forever. Me and Chris, we’ve got a lot of history I don’t even want to start skimming right now. It’s taken me a year of psychological help, and even though it’s thousands of dollars later and a few towns over, I’m still as fucked up as I was when we were together. So I don’t even want to think about it right now.

“Mom can you throw those away please.” I ask, trying to keep my voice from trembling. I know that she’s looking through them, reflecting on the days where everything seemed to be perfect. I inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth, and she’s still shuffling through papers. “Mom I’m going to go then okay?” I ask, and before she can even answer, I pull the phone away from my ear, and hang it up on the receiver. Maybe I should just stop answering the phone.

…

“Alright and basically, all you do is push the subtotal button, then the drawer will open, and the amount of change you need to give comes up on this little screen here.” I don’t really understand how Mindy remembered all this shit, I’m barely taking it all in. I nod anyways and try to follow along with her airy instructions. She points to different things and then pushes a few buttons, logging me in as cashier. “It doesn’t take that long to figure out.”

I nod and stare at all the buttons in front of me, wondering how the fuck I’m going to pull this off. Mindy moves off to the side and starts picking her nails, flicking little bits of pink nail polish that chips off onto the floor. I just stand awkwardly, hoping not to make too big a fool of myself. I mean it’s one thing to get a new job and be unsure of how to work everything. It’s quite another to get showed up by Mindy, the chick who the janitor fucked two months ago in the staff room.

A few minutes pass and then a flash of green comes out of one of the aisles. I force my the-customer-is-always-right smile, and I always get so nervous under situations like this. I’m not sure why, I just hate trying to learn something when there are other people in the room, I’d rather sit there for three hours and teach myself, then have some tutor or shit like that berate me for not listening. It’s not my fault I have selective hearing. That’s what my parents always said, anyways.

“Did you find everything you needed today?” I ask, looking at the cash register buttons and trying to remember the difference between the MDSBTL button, and the one that reads LDSBTL. Who the hell invents these things? I mean if somebody is working at a grocery store, you’d think that’d mean that they weren’t smart enough for something like a fucking rocket scientist, cause God knows they’re the only ones who could actually figure this shit out. I finally realize my customer hasn’t replied, and I move my gaze from the control pad, to the person on the other side of the counter that houses scratch-and-win case.

“I did actually, thanks.” He says, and I think it’s official to say I have my very own stalker now. How many times does one guy have to come to a grocery store? And more so then that, how much mother fucking macaroni and cheese does one guy need? 

“Great.” I reply through my teeth, reaching across to grab his groceries and ring them through the till. I can feel his eyes on me as I nervously scan the bar codes, and I wish I could figure this guy out. He seems to be really open, but also really closed off at the same time, if that makes any sense what so ever. One thing he’s pretty free about is his little fetish with orange noodles, though.

“Hey when do you start selling that ice cream with the little candy cane bits in it?” He asks me randomly, and I know that even Mindy has looked up. I mean, I don’t even know how to reply to that. I stop scanning the items and just look at him for a second, and he’s looking back at me with those purple eyes. Is this guy like a figment of my imagination or something? Does he exist for real? 

“Um, I guess normally that comes around Christmas.” I state after a few beats, and right away he’s got this big smile across his face as he explains that’s his favorite ice cream ever, and he really wishes they made it year long. I don’t really know how to respond to that, so I just nod my head. “Yeah…”

“I thought you were the bag boy?” He questions after a moment of silence, and what does he think, he gets to ask me a question for every fifty cents worth of pasta he buys? That smile is still across his face, and he’s actually starting to annoy me. Like can you not like somebody that you don’t even know? I guess so.

“I was, but my boss put me here the other day.” 

“Oh.” His smile widens. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah.” I nod, and push the last box of macaroni through. The total on the screen reads six-sixty-seven. I bite my lip a bit as my finger hovers over the two buttons that only God himself could figure out, and I kind of want to go for the first one. I push it, and a couple of cents worth of tax comes on the screen. I win. I look over my shoulder at Mindy, who is supposed to be bagging, with a triumphant grin. She just looks back at me and then goes back to her nails. Okay. Guess I am still the bag boy. You know what, doesn’t matter. I totally just figured the subtotal buttons out. I reach over and grab a few bags, asking, “Paper or plastic?”

“Paper.”

And why did I not see that coming.


	5. Apartment 407

Six months is a really long time. 

Well, maybe it’s the endless days working at the grocery store and then even longer nights spent alone in the dark that made the six months seem like six years, but who’s counting, right? 

“If you could just add a hundred dollars worth of power to my bill, and I can pay you next month-“ I sigh as I’m cut off by the local electrical company that powers this apartment complex. They start listing off the general ‘customers are our number one concern, but fuck off anyways?’ speech, and I’ve heard it a million times, I could recite it off if you really wanted me to. “No, never mind. Sorry.” I whisper, and I can feel my throat restricting a bit as I hang up the pay phone. When the fuck did life get so god damned hard?

I don’t get it. I went to church when I was little. Even though I never wanted to, I went to Sunday School while my parents went and did their weekly hymns. When I was in seventh grade, instead of attending the parties, I was sitting at home because I wasn’t allowed to go – too much ‘alcohol and temptation’. I’ve never smoked, never done drugs, never had a drop of booze in my system, said my fucking prayers until I hit fifteen and realized that God didn’t even exist, and I still phone my parents every week so they know that I’m still alive. When did it get to be that I got the short end of the stick, running away from home because I couldn’t fix problems, leaving everything I had ever known, and not even for something great. No shit, this life I’ve got is a lot more stable mentally, but come on. I live in the fucking dark okay? I live in the dark and I can’t afford to get any electricity, hell I can’t even fucking bargain with them because I’ve never had a real argument with anyone in my whole God damned life.

I look down the dark street, the one that is the closest to my apartments that has a pay phone on it, and stuff my hands into my pockets. The streets are shiny because it was raining this morning, and the night is reflecting off of it and if I wasn’t so bitter and cynical and maybe even secretly depressed, I might say it’s almost pretty. Either way it’s not, it’s ugly and it’s stupid and I’m glad I don’t have anybody to share it with. I start down the street, eyes trained on my boots because that’s what I was taught. Eyes down, don’t catch anybody’s gaze. You might start trouble. Always made me feel like I was smaller then whoever I was walking by. Not by size, I mean my soul. My insides. It made me feel bad, it still does. I wonder why I still do it.

I don’t care. I just want to get home and take off my clothes and fold them and then get into my bed that’s always cold, that I can never manage to warm up, and fall asleep. I don’t want to think because then I’ll realize that this is my life, this is all there is, and I don’t want that. I don’t feel like waking up to a pillow that’s soaked with tears, because I don’t cry. I never cry. I’m never supposed to cry.

As I shuffle down the street, avoiding puddles and wondering what time it is, I start thinking. I think about everything that anybody has ever told me, I think about every memory that I can remember because maybe it’ll cheer me up. I remember when I was twelve and a half, visiting the local middle high school, doing a walk through so it wouldn’t be such a culture shock when I went into grade eight. Grade eight was the deciding year, I think. I think that’s when my life decided that this is where I was going to end up, because I remember that was the year a lot of things changed for me.

When I first brought home Chris, Mom couldn’t believe I was dating somebody who was black. It wasn’t that she was racist, she just didn’t understand why. How could her good little Caucasian boy get involved with a thug, as she had called him, a thug just because he was black. My Dad didn’t trust him right off the bat, and maybe that’s why I hated him five years of my life, the same five years I was involved with Chris. Cause he was right. My Dad was right and I didn’t listen to him and that’s why I’m here now.

I turn onto my street and blink back tears as I approach the red steps of my building, the same steps I eat breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner on. I try to work as much as I can, so when I come home at ten o’clock at night, I can just go right to bed and not worry about stuff like that. Sometimes if I work for the whole day, when I come home I get into bed and fall asleep right away. And then I don’t start thinking about things.

Unlocking the lobby doors, I step through and stomp my boots on the rug. When I walk towards the stairs, I catch my reflection in the mirrors that line the hallway, and I wish I didn’t look this way. I wish I was blonde and my eyes were blue and I wasn’t gay so I could meet a girl, the same type of girl my brother did, and marry her and just let that be it. I run a hand through my hair and jog up the stairs, trying not to slip because when it rains these steps can be pretty deadly. Or so the eighty-one year old woman who broke a rib falling down them last week tells me.

I unlock my apartment door – 407 – and push the door open, and I’m greeted with the same darkness that I left an hour ago when I went to phone the electric company. Yeah I don’t have cable, or phone either. I got lucky at the place, I have heat and water because it comes with the renter’s fee. I rub my temples and sit on the edge of my bed, rocking back and forwards slightly as I study the floor with blurry eyes. My feet are cold and Christmas always freezes my bones and I can’t believe I’m still here all by myself. My Mom, she’s started to ask me if I’ve met any nice people, any friends or any thing. Every time I tell her the same thing – no. 

And her reply: “What, is my youngest son a hermit now, at the age of eighteen?”

Yes Mom, your youngest son is a hermit because his boyfriend abused him and he was too afraid to tell anybody for all of those years. Yes Mom, your youngest son is a hermit because he doesn’t trust anyone anymore, doesn’t even trust himself at times, because every time he does, he gets hurt. I’m not some stupid guy who gets his heart broken five times and then dies of suicide at the age of twenty nine (after three attempts). I get fucked over, and I stop. I don’t need anybody, and yeah, if I’m a fucking hermit then so be it. I’d rather be living by myself here, then stuck with anybody back home. And Yeah Mom, maybe I do miss you sometimes, but I’d never admit it.

I need to sleep. 

…

“Benji, do you mind working an extra shift today?” My boss asks me, popping his head into the employee’s lounge. They’ve hired some new workers, I haven’t talked to any of them yet. I tend to arrive five minutes early and have just enough time to change into my uniform before my shift starts, while they’re half an hour early, sitting in the staff room eating bagels and coffee. 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” I nod, tying the apron up behind me. He smiles at me, and with a quick thank you, the door is closing behind him and he’s gone. I yawn, bringing a hand up to cover my mouth. I didn’t sleep very well last night. 

I head out to the front of the store, clipping my name tag to the apron and shutting the employee’s only door behind me. It’s not that crowded, considering it’s only ten in the morning and most people are at work and not doing their grocery shopping. I start up towards the front, where the tills are, and as I’m passing the magazine rack, I see a familiar figure. 

I have no idea who this guy is. He comes in once a week though, sometimes twice, and he always has these bright colored clothes on – I’ve never seen him wear black once. All he does is buy his macaroni and cheese, two boxes if it’s regular priced, five if it’s on sale, and every time he gets paper bags instead of plastic. And I don’t get him. He’ll smile at me, tell me to have a nice day, and then the next week, there he is again. Sometimes he’ll randomly say things, ask questions like that one time he wanted to know about the peppermint ice cream. Just last week we got some in, too, I bet he’ll buy some of that this week as well.

Still though, I don’t know his name, don’t know where he’s from or what he does, even though I see him every week and can picture him inside my head. Every time throws me a little off guard though, because once a month and a half or so has passed, his hair is a different color. So far I’ve counted red, orange, purple, green, and fuchsia. It’s almost like he has an identity crisis, or something.

Either way I continue up to the counters, not bothering to look over my shoulder because I don’t feel like thinking about anything right now. I don’t feel like noticing what color his nails or painted, or whether he’s wearing eyeliner today or not. I don’t feel like doing anything except for working this dead end job, and then going home and falling asleep so I can start all over again tomorrow morning.

Just as I get up to the counter, some new kid, I think his name is Bryan, he comes up and I guess he’s my bag boy. I force a smile at him and don’t bother to say anything, at the moment I don’t even think I really need a bag boy. Ever since Mindy left five months ago, I’ve been doing the bagging myself because they couldn’t find anyone to hire. And now they’ve got multiples, so figure that one out.

“Hi Ben, how are you doing today?” He asks, smiling a great big, white and toothy grin. My slightly less tooth-filled one dissipates down into a tight lipped smile as I feel my confidence wavering. I manage a little typical short answer, the ‘fine thanks,’ and he leaves me alone after that. I check into the till and close my eyes for a second, leaning against the counter because I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton balls. Fucking insomnia, that’d be great if that happened to me. Not like I don’t have enough problems already. Not like I’m already a whiny, self absorbed bitch, why not add one more problem to the pile?

I open my eyes and I can see a head bobbing behind one of the aisles, and I know it’s that weird guy, the guy who could have been Ronald McDonald’s double at one time, and I can tell it’s him just because of the hat I can tell this person is wearing. It’s a tight beanie type thing, and it’s red, bright fucking red, with this pom-pom on top. How is it that every time, every single time, this guy seems to amaze me with what he’s willing to wear in public. When he comes around the corner and towards my check out, I see that not only has he got a pom-pom, it’s got two tassels on either side of it, and they’re red too. It reminds me of the hat my Mom used to make me wear in the fall and winter, it had ear flaps because she was obsessed with ear infections. She thought any kind of windy day might bring them on.

He comes up to my counter, and he’s got this big smile on his face, and it almost makes me want to smile too. I don’t though, just force my lip up a little, so I don’t get fired for scowling at the customers. He just keeps smiling though, unloading his basket out onto the counter. I start ringing his items through, and sure enough he’s got two boxes of macaroni and cheese, one box of the peppermint ice cream, and a cheap plastic table cloth that we’ve been selling since the end of November. It’s Christmas-themed, with little cheesy reindeers and snowmen running up and down the sides. The manufacturer makes them for next to nothing, and we sell them for five dollars.

“That’ll be $9.12.” I say, ringing the table cloth through the machine. The guy gives me a ten, smiling that stupid fucking nothing-is-wrong-with me smile, the one where you know it’s for real and not just one of those smile-so-you-can’t-tell-I’m-hurting-inside ones. I hate it, I fucking hate it because I’ve wanted one of those forever, I’ve wanted to smile because I mean it, and I’ve never been able to pull it off.

“Paper or plastic?” Brian asks. 

“Paper.” I answer, without thinking, and I’m pretty sure my cheeks might be a little pink right now. Brian looks at me funny, but Peppermint Ice Cream Guy just smiles and nods, accepting his change as I give it back to him. I keep my eyes trained on the counter as Brian hands him his bag, and I’m just trying not to think about this day and how it’s progressively getting worse in my favor.

“Thanks.” The guy says at me anyway, smiling some more before he picks his bag up, and walks towards the exit doors. When I look up, I notice that the hair poking out of the back of his beanie is bright green. Red and green, and Christmas is in two weeks. How fucking perfect.

“What was up with that?” Brian asks, putting a couple extra bags he pulled out by accident back under the counter. I shrug and shut the cash register drawer, choosing to continue looking at the counter instead of at his face. Jesus Christ, I’d rather have picked Mindy over this.


	6. Christmas is the Happiest Fucking Time Of the Year

Maybe I should make some friends. Maybe I should stop buying McDonalds every day and save up to get some electricity. Maybe I should buy some new clothes. Maybe I should quit the grocery store, and aim a little higher. Maybe I should go back to school. Maybe I should lose some weight. Maybe I should whiten my teeth. Maybe I should start eating healthier. Maybe I should go back home.

“You’re screwed up.” I mutter to myself, looking at the reflection that stares back at me in my bathroom mirror. I shake my head and reach for my hair brush, a sorry looking thing that I found under my bed the day before I left. I’m pretty sure that at one point we had used it for the dogs. I brush it through my hair, getting out the little knots that always form at the end as I stare myself down. I really hate the color of my eyes, they’re brown. I wish they were nicer, like that guy at the grocery store. His are nice. I’ve never seen eyes like his. I guess if I got the duplicates, that would pretty much blow the whole point. Oh well. 

Maybe I should find a church around here.

…

The bus terminal is a weird place, it’s where you find all the perverts and “punks.” But then again, little kids use it every day to get back and forth to school, so it’s almost like a double standard, I guess. I get on the bus, looking around nervously as I shuffle down the aisle. There’s an open spot a couple seats up, and if I don’t fall ass over head trying to get there as it starts moving, I’ll sit beside this old lady. She seems…old lady-ish. Fuck, she’s even got a bag of knitting material.

I sit down beside her as planned, forcing a small smile as I awkwardly advert my gaze over the top of her head. She doesn’t do anything, doesn’t smile or frown, just keeps looking straight ahead, never acknowledging anything around her. I just try to relax and lean back in my seat. It smells like fucking, cinnamon or something in here. I hate that smell. It reminds me of Christmas and Mom and home. This is my first Christmas away from home. Jesus Christ. I close my eyes for a second and I can see flashes of my childhood behind my eye lids. Stockings, snowmen… Okay, so that didn’t work. I open my eyes.

Ten minutes later, the old woman has fallen asleep beside me, her chin at her chest and her tongue sticking out between her teeth a little, and my knee is bouncing up and down nervously. I keep my eyes glued to the window beside me as I watch for the supposed mall that’s here. I’ve never been, I never really considered myself a mall type of person. Actually to be honest, I’ve never considered myself an anything type of person. I’m really not sure what I am doing here. I just woke up and decided to get the fuck out of that dingy apartment for the first time in forever. 

I finally see a massive sign up ahead, one of those cheesy mall ones. This one is fuchsia and emerald green, splaying the name of the place in fancy cursive writing. I have no idea what it says, I can barely make out the words from here. All I know is that I can see a blob of ugly colors. I reach up and push the stop request button, watching as the red light up at the front blinks. I wait until the bus has stopped at the sidewalk until I bother getting up, because I know if it had lurched, I would have fallen. Simple as that. I climb over the umbrellas and puddles of snow and water that are in the aisle until I get to the door, and jump out. I don’t thank the bus driver as my feet hit the cement, because the door is already closing behind me, and he’s speeding away.

Putting my hands in my pockets, I start up the sidewalk, towards where the crossing is. It’s started snowing again, and I can tell that little white snowflakes are getting stuck in my hair and on my jacket. I also know that when I get into the heated atmosphere of the mall, they’re going to melt, and in turn I’ll end up soaked. Either way, I hurry along, biting on my bottom lip because it’s a nervous habit that I’ve always had. I’m not sure what I’m so nervous about. Maybe interacting with other people out of the fucking grocery store.

I cross the road, jogging across the crosswalk because if I was a driver, I’d really hate sitting there as some pedestrian wanders across at their own pace. I wish I had some gloves. I bring my hands up to my mouth and blow over my skin, trying to warm my fingers up my rubbing my palms together. Doesn’t work. That just spurs me to hurry through the parking lot even faster, and my teeth are almost chattering by the time I get to the doors. 

There’s one of those Salvation Army folks outside, ringing their bell with their little pot of money beside them. I force a smile and walk by. I don’t feel bad or anything about not throwing in a handful of change, because if I had a little more self worth and a little more desperation, I’d be visiting the Salvation Army every day. Either way, I step into the mall and shake myself off, and I haven’t been standing there for thirty seconds when some overstuffed woman in a plaid scarf shoves by me with her cart. Never hit a woman. Never hit a woman.

She continues on, her head snapping from side to side as she looks at all the display windows, I guess. I don’t know. I’ve never really understood girls. Then again I never bothered to, either. I start walking, stomping my boots for a couple feet so when I walk off of the carpet I won’t slip and fall on my ass. I eye all the stores, and there’s some really weird ones. The Knife Hut? Who the hell would want to work there? “Yeah ma’am, we’ve got a special on…knifes. Three for ten dollars. They’re sharp. Because they’re knives.”

I shake my head and continue down, sliding myself between people when they start walking too slow. Lots of people are carrying pre-wrapped bags, and I never understood that. Why spend all that time picking the perfect gift, only to have it de-personalized by some big store vendor? I’d rather get a package wrapped in the ugliest, tackiest paper ever, with three miles of scotch tape around it, then get one of those shiny purple pieces of bullshit with the silver and white ribbon around it.

There’s a little alternative store tucked away in-between a jeweler and a big-and-tall men’s clothing store. Well. About as alternative as you can get in a fabricated mall, I guess. I’ve never shopped anywhere except for Wal-mart and other high end retailers like that, because they carry what I need. Cheap black pants and t-shirts. I step into the store, and right away I’m greeted with aisles and aisles of bright clothing. I see a black corner at the far end of the store - but tattoos, studs and piercings are not exactly my thing. I run a hand through my hair and step over to the nearest rack, and um this isn’t exactly me. I step away from the aisles of skirts and purses, and over towards what appears to be the men’s section. Because I am a manly man, obviously.

Just as I start making my way down the rack, one of what I’m guessing is the employees comes out of the back room. They’ve got a scowl on their face and the body language on her is completely unapproachable. Yeah exactly the type of person you’d expect to work in a store like this – fake. Just like those chicks who tan themselves and get bags of plastic shoved under their skin, these girls put on the leather and get their lips pierced, and it’s like the same thing. Body mutilation because some form of society thinks you’re a better looking person when you have it. Cutting and committing suicide because you seem like more of a “tortured soul,” and then people will respect you.

I push coat hanger after coat hanger, trying to find something that isn’t reminiscent of a plagued elf. I can feel the chick’s eyes burning into my back, and I almost want to turn around and ask her what the fuck she’s looking at. I just shake my head and continue going through the clothing, and I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I know I want something new. 

After what I’d estimate a good half hour, I find a pair of pants that aren’t too bad looking. In fact, they’re pretty decent. They’re black, but old habits die hard, right? I pull them off the rack and hold them out in front of me, pulling a bit at one of the zippers that are on the side, just to make sure it’s not shoddy and will break off. When they don’t, I search for the price tag. Thirty bucks. I can handle that.

…

Note to self. Never buy a pair of pants before you try them on, and on top of that, never wear them for the first time to work, where you can’t change out of them. I feel like a douche. These things are giving me the wedgie of the fucking century and I can’t exactly do anything about it. They’ve got to be a size too small. Or five. Yeah, try to change and this is what you get. Fuck.

“Ben, can you head over to the express checkout? I put Mark on till five.” I nod and try not to grimace as I get up off of the leather couch in the employee’s room. Remind me to burn these fucking pants when I get home. Well. Remind me to throw them away, if I had anything remotely like a fireplace, I might burn them. But I don’t, so I can’t. Fucking concentrate. 

I head out of the lounge and out into the store, adjusting my apron as I start towards the front. I don’t get why they put the employee’s room at the very back of the store, it’s not like we work a lot in the meat department, which is what we have to walk into every time we walk out. I take a detour into the cereal aisle instead of heading up the frozen food one, because every time I freeze my balls off. Hence the name frozen food. Okay that was really bad. I’m sorry.

By the time I get to the express checkout, five or six people have lined up, and I’m pretty fucking sure that most of them have more then eight items. Either way I walk around the counter and check myself in to the cash register, sighing a little as I see whoever has been here last left a little pink unicorn sticker next to where the subtotal pops up. Jesus Christ. 

I force a smile as a middle-aged woman comes up, and really resist the urge to just like, bend down or something. Fuck these things are killing me. She smiles at me and watches the screen as I start ringing her items through, and it looks like she took advantage of the special on cookies, because holy crap who needs this many of them.

“That was on sale.” She says, bending over the display case of scratch-and-win tickets to point to the little monitor that displays the items I’m scanning through. She points to the box of tea I just put through. “That box of tea was on sale,” She pauses to look over at my name tag. “Ben.”

“Actually, the cookies were on sale. The tea is at full price.” I say, shrugging a little, because what am I supposed to do? Change the rules for her? She stands up properly and shakes her head, like she’s completely sure her tea is on sale.

“I’m afraid you’re wrong, this tea is on sale.” She states.

“Um, actually, Ma’am the machine would’ve changed the price if it was on sale. I’m afraid it’s not, but these cookies, they’re on sale. So…”

“Do a price check on them.” She says, crossing her arms and setting her heals firmly in the ground. I bite my lip, resisting the urge to tell her to shove her definitely-not-on-sale-box-of-tea up her ass and get the fuck out of my express lane. Instead, I nod and reach over, picking up the phone and pressing nine.

“Can I get a price check on…” I reach over and pick up the box, turning it over a couple of times until I find the barcode. “Item number nine-six-three-zero-zero-seven?” I hang up the phone and force another smile at her, and she just frowns at me and shakes her head, mumbling that she knows she’s right. I’m either going to scream about these pants that are cutting me apart, or make her wear them for ten minutes. That’d fucking shut her up, I bet she wouldn’t be able to fit into them though. Looks like too much tea and cookies for her. 

I start bagging the rest of the groceries as I wait for a price check, and a couple minutes later, one of the stocker boys, Kevin, comes running up with the little price tag that stays on the shelf in his hand. It definitely says it’s not on sale. I resist the urge to gloat, but I can’t help the little smirk that comes across my face. I revert to my days as a six year old for a minute, and narrowly miss opening my mouth to say, ‘I told you so.’ Hell, if it’s my six year old self talking, I’m sure I’d sneak a ‘fatty’ in there too. Yeah I never said I was a well behaved kid.

“Sorry Ma’am, it’s full price.” I throw the box of tea in the bag as well, and she just flips her hair and hands me her bank card, waiting as I swipe it through and hand the little console to her so she can put her PIN number into it. I wait patiently, throwing a smile at the next customer in line, who is a little girl with a box of that candy cane ice cream sitting on the counter. I haven’t seen that guy lately, the one who got a carton of that a couple weeks ago and wore that ugly red hat.

Five minutes later, after the little girl has handed me exactly three hundred seventy two pennies and taken her box of ice cream in a plastic bag, I’m this close to calling it quits and just going home so I can change out of these mother fucking pants. A head of blue hair stops me though.

“Hi,” He says, and he’s got the biggest smile on his face ever. He empties his groceries out onto the counter, and he’s got like twelve items. Can the guy not see the big sign over my head that reads, “EIGHT ITEMS ONLY”? I bet he’s been waiting in line for a really long time. So I can’t tell him to get his ass over to the other line, that would probably make him never come back, and then we’d have lost a customer. Then my boss would be mad. And then I might get fired. So yeah, for my own benefit, I definitely shouldn’t send him away. “Merry Christmas.” He says, pulling the every-color-of-the-rainbow striped scarf away from his face. 

My eyebrows raise as I look up at him, and he’s smiling so bright, it makes me want to tell him to stop fooling himself. But then that hurt is there again, because I know he isn’t. There are some people that you can just tell don’t pretend, and this guy is one of them. “Um…Merry Christmas. As well.” I say quietly, hoping he doesn’t see the pink unicorn sticker on the cash register. He’d probably think I’m weird. Yeah. That makes sense, this coming from a guy who would probably wear a t-shirt with the same pink unicorn on it. I look back up at him. “Your hair is blue.” I state, and it kind of comes out before I can help it.

“Yeah. It is.”

“Oh.” I mumble, ringing through one of his boxes of macaroni and cheese. He’s added a new item to the mix today, two packets of green and red sprinkles. I bet he’s going to get home and make cookies, or something like that. He seems to me like the type who would make gingerbread men, and then wreck the taste by putting sprinkles on. Definitely not the icing type. I don’t think. “I thought you didn’t know.”

He laughs, he actually laughs, and it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Because it’s a giggle. What grown man giggles? God I really wish he’d stop coming here, I kind of hate it sometimes, how he makes me question little things like that. I smile too though, and I wish I didn’t just do that either. He just shakes his head and reaches back for his wallet, and he’s never had a wallet before today. Normally he pulls a bank card out of his jacket, and that’s it.

This time however, he pulls his aforementioned wallet out, and proceeds to empty it onto the counter. Dimes, pennies and quarters roll over the place as he searches for his card, and he’s wearing gloves. They look like the kind that the hobos in Disney movies wear. They’re the cheap black ones, and they’re kind of thread bare in parts, and the finger tips are cut off. I guess if you wear gloves all the time, you gotta be smart and keep your dexterity. 

He starts pulling out cards, and after ten seconds, there’s a library card, medical card, bus pass, and countless other plastic things spread all over the counter. He smiles up at me as he finally pulls out the red bank card he’s been looking for, for a few minutes now. I can’t help but half heartedly raise one corner of my mouth, in a half tight lipped smile, as I take it and run it through the machine. He stands there, turning to smile at the woman beside him before turning back to me, and sorting through all the crap he’s emptied back onto the counter. Instead of putting it all in quickly, like any normal person would’ve, he carefully puts every card into it’s rightful place, which P.S. they definitely weren’t in before, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s sorting it by color and date or relevance.

“Paper, right?” I ask, and he looks up to nod and smile at me. When he does, I notice his eyes dart down and look at the name tag I’m wearing. He doesn’t say anything though, just goes back to putting all his cards away, and then his bank card as I hand it back to him. “Can I ask you something?” I ask after a second, as he takes the bank number console and starts punching his PIN in.

He looks up at me and does a half-smile, telling me that it, “Depends.”

“What’s your name?” I question, and I figure if I’m going to make fun of this guy, or at least hate him a little, then I might as well get to know his name. I bet it’s something really bad, like Earl, or Clarence, or Simon. He seems like a kid who would’ve been stuck with weird parents. Hence how he turned out. 

He places the bank console back on the counter and reaches for his bags. I hand him his receipt and he takes it, smiling at me as he gathers his bag off the counter. “Joel,” He says. “It’s Joel.” He looks at me for another second before taking a step towards the doors. I turn away, and just as I go to start checking the next customer through, I hear a, “And I like your pants.” 

When I turn around to look at him, all I can see is his bright pink back retreating through the doors and into the night. I can’t believe I just asked him his name. I can’t believe he just blatantly complimented me. I can’t believe the last whole twenty minutes just happened.

…Maybe I should wear these pants more.


	7. The 11:20 Deadline

“Thanks for closing up tonight Ben,” Mr. Carver says, smiling at me as he comes out of his office. I force a little smile and nod, reaching back to pull at the strings on my apron. Longest night ever. It was a whirlwind of customers buying last minute things for their Christmas dinners that are in a week and a half. “You’re the only one I’d trust doing it. Especially after doing a five hour shift on the express checkout.” 

“Thanks Mr. Carver, means a lot.” I nod, pulling the apron over my head. I stuff it in to the little cubicle that was assigned to me as he disappears back into his office to count up the totals for the day. Man, longest shift ever. I check my watch and it’s approaching nine thirty, which gives me enough time to get to McDonalds and then be in bed so I can wake up again before noon tomorrow. “Hey, do you need me for anything else?” I call, but I can hear him talking on the phone already, so I don’t bother asking again. Why bring on more un-necessary work for myself? 

I grab my jacket and adjust my pants the best I can, and I seriously cannot wait to get home and change out of them – compliment or no compliment. Before I leave, I grab a bottle of water from the little fridge they’ve got in here, and even if it is below zero outside, I’m fucking thirsty. I don’t care if my hands freeze to the bottle and the only way to save myself is to cut them off. It’s totally worth it. I set the bottle on the table so I can do up my jacket, because I know this place already, it’ll be blowing with wind and rain and snow as soon as I step out the door.

I do the top button up and head towards the employee’s exit, since Mr. Carver has already locked the main doors, and step outside into the cold. It’s just as freezing as I expected it to be, maybe even a little worse. It’s not as bad as last night though, so I’ll survive. There’s already slush and sleet forming on the cement though, and I’m just glad that I don’t drive. Knowing me, I’d be a block away from home and somehow manage to fatally crash in to a telephone pole or something like that. It’s just expected to be my luck.

I start around the side of the building and out towards the front, shoving my hands deep in my pockets so they don’t get frost bite and fall off. Maybe I should’ve splurged on some gloves instead of these stupid pants. I keep my eyes on my feet as I walk down the little path lined with icy plants and dead weeds, and when I look up, there’s only one car left in the parking lot, and I’m sure it’s Mr. Carver’s. I always thought parking lots were kind of scary at night, because even though you can see everything fifty feet in front of you, everything past the gates and into the street is murky and pitch black. Things I can’t see the end of have always scared me. Oceans. Life.

Someone humming Christmas carols interrupts my thoughts, and for a second I think it’s one of those bag ladies. The ones who shuffle around at ten to midnight, hair like Medusa’s and fingernails dirty as they scrounge through garbage cans and dumpsters for old soda cans worth five or ten cents. But when I look up, I get quite the surprise. Sitting on the curb just to the side of the main doors of the grocery store, is someone with bright blue hair, a hot pink sweatshirt, and paper bag filled with boxes of macaroni and sprinkles sitting on the concrete beside him.

“Do you work this late every night?” He calls, pulling the hood from his head, because it looks like his hat is not in attendance tonight. I stop walking, leaving my hands in my pockets as he brushes the snowflakes from his hair and smiles up at me. His face is pale, and I’m wondering if he was sitting there the whole time I was working. With this guy, I really wouldn’t be surprised. 

“Yeah, mostly.” I shrug, and maybe I should clue myself in to the whole weirdness of this situation. Okay. So, after he buys his groceries, he comes outside, takes a seat on the no doubt cold as fuck curb, and doesn’t even bother to move until I come out almost five and a half hours later. What am I saying? He’s probably waiting for someone, for a ride or taxi or something. 

“Doesn’t it get boring?” He asks, wrinkling his nose a little as he talks, even though I’m sure it’s unintentional, and that smile on his face just widens a little bit as he keeps looking up at me. Before I can answer, all of the lights go off inside the grocery store, leaving us under the neon glow of the white and green sign that reads ‘Carver’s Grocery.’ I look back down at the curb, where he’s still sitting, and watching me intently. I blink a few times, watching as he looks back at me with those purple eyes.

“Not really. I just don’t think about it that much I guess.” I say honestly, trying to get my hands a little deeper into my pockets. It’s cold out here. Well duh it’s fucking cold, Ben, it’s been snowing since the sun went down. “I’m just gonna go to McDonalds anyway, then I’ll crash cause I got work in the morning.”

“Do you do that every day?” He asks, bringing a hand up and adjusting the scarf around his neck. It looks home made, like somebody had a bunch of old yarn laying around their house and decided to just knit it all together to get rid of it. 

“Pretty much.” We fall into silence for a second, him picking at a loose thread in his pants as I scuff the toe of my shoe over the ground. They’re the only pair of shoes I own. I move my eyes from where they’re trained on the wet cement to look at him, and just as I do, he looks up at me and our eyes lock for a moment. Right away I can feel my cheeks getting warm and I divert my attention back to the floor, waiting a second before I do the customary check to make sure he’s just as embarrassed as I am. He’s not, he’s still smiling and looking up at me and he seems to be genuinely happy for some reason. I don’t really get why. “So are you waiting for someone?”

“Me?” Yes, you. The only fucking person within three blocks of here that is still roaming the streets. Who else would it be? Jesus Christ. 

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head and brings a hand up to scratch the side of his face. “Nah,” He says, “Not really.” I watch him as he reaches back and pulls his hood back over his head, because the snow has started to fall a little heavier now. This area is really nice in the winter, whether I want to admit it or not. 

“So you always wait around outside local grocery stores then?” I ask, and he smiles up at me as he shakes his head. I pull my hand out of my pocket and bring it up to scratch the back of my neck, a habit I’ve had since I can really remember. My Mom always called it something I do when I’m nervous, but I really don’t think so. Not anymore at least, I think I just do it because my hands get fidgety and then I have nothing else to do with them, so I have to find something. “Do all your plans revolve around this curb for the night then?” I ask, considering he hasn’t said a word in the last couple of minutes.

“Although this is a very nice curb, no.” He smiles, and he’s got the faintest lisp. I never really noticed it before, because I’ve never heard more then a few sentences out of him at one time, but it’s definitely there. “The only plans I have for the night involve making cookies.”

“Sounds like a fun time.” I lie, because who makes cookies anymore? For real, you can buy packs of them at the store, fuck, like that old twat did this afternoon. Pre-made, pre-sprinkled, pre-everything. Even though I’m pretty sure he’d get the brand that was on sale, and buy one less then needed - just like he does with his macaroni and cheese. “Alright,” I say after a second, and he looks up at me with slightly raised eyebrows. “I gotta get going, everything but the drive-thru at McDonalds closes in about forty minutes, and it takes me thirty to get there.”

I drop my hand back down to my side and turn around, because I can pretty much hear the greasy food calling me now. I think it’s closed on Christmas Day though, I guess I’ll have to either starve, or find another place to eat. I’m pretty sure the family’ll be having turkey and ham and everything that my childhood holiday dinners were made of, and I’ll get stuck with Spam or some shit like that. His voice jolts me out of my inner rant as he calls after me. 

“Hey, wait.”

I’ve only walked a couple of steps, but I turn around anyways and look at him. He’s still sitting there, only he looks as though if I hadn’t have stopped and turned around, he would’ve chased after me. I wait for a second, as he smiles at me again and just continues to look at my expression. After a moment, he gestures to his grocery bag and asks me, “Would you consider taking raw cookie dough and a bag of flour over one night at McDonalds?” I’m pretty sure my eyebrows raise up into my hairline, because here he is, in some type of way inviting me over to his house. To bake cookies, nonetheless. “…Cause I got sprinkles, you know.”

“I should probably just go and…” I trail off and gesture to the road in front of me, but he just grins at me and shakes his head, and how can this guy be so clueless? You don’t invite over some person you’ve never really even met for real on a spur of the moment thing. I mean, he doesn’t know I’m not some psycho serial killer. Just like I don’t know he’s some rapist that’ll fuck me then cut me into little bits and keep in his freezer, or bury in his garden. Or put in his cookies. “…You know. I’ve got work in the morning and things.”

He just continues smiling up at me, taking a second to zip his hoodie up right to his neck. I’m pretty sure if I saw this guy just walking down the street, I’d jaywalk just so I wouldn’t have to converse with him in any way. I mean, all I can see poking out of this obviously size-too-small jacket, is a head of hair – blue hair, if I haven’t stressed that enough – and a way too pale to be healthy face. If I wasn’t a gay guy I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t notice it, but in this light I can tell he’s wearing eyeliner, too.

“I live a couple of blocks over, I promise you won’t be too late. I can make you some coffee if it gets that bad.” He states.

Before I even realize what my mouth is doing, I very firmly state that, “I don’t like coffee.” I’m pretty sure my mouth drops a little bit, because even though I’m blatantly cynical and bitter inside my own head, I’ve never really said anything out loud like that. I’ve got manners, at least. What blows my mind even more though, is that he just starts laughing. He completely cracks up, and he’s got the loudest giggle that I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t even try to disguise it.

“Hot chocolate, then.” He says after a second, rubbing his palms on his knees. 

Maybe I should humor this guy. I mean, he has been sitting here all night. And I’m not stupid, even though I’m not about to verbally say it, or mentally think about it, I know exactly why he’s been parked here on his ass all evening. Still, something holds me back. I don’t really know exactly what it is. I’m sure it has something to do with fear, even though I’m not sure what part of this I’m scared about.

But hey. If he murders me, chops my body into little pieces, and then finds some innovative way to hide my remains, at least it’ll be an improvement over this thing that I’m living now. Can’t say that a change like that wouldn’t be welcomed. 

“So what do you say?” He smiles, and does this guy ever stop? What is there to be so ecstatic about, I mean honestly? It is not possible for any person in any kind of walk of life to be that happy, it’s not possible to smile at everything. Not even little things like Christmas table cloths or misplaced bank cards. My eyes move down to look at the concrete, and I watch his shoes. He taps his feet, I never noticed that before either. I wonder if that’s the habit that he’s got. Everybody has a habit, whether somebody thinks they’re perfect or too happy or sad or anything you want to call them.

I check my watch before looking up at his face, and he’s just watching me. It’s 11:20 anyways. By the time I got to McDonalds, it’d be closed. 

“Sure.”

He grins and I hear footsteps walking down the side of the store, the path I walked down not twenty minutes ago. I look up just as Mr. Carver comes around the corner, loosening the tie that he’s got around his neck. His big, heavy winter jacket is thrown over his arm, and how is he not frozen to the bone? He notices me and smiles, nodding his head a bit, and I do the same to him. He crosses the parking lot and I hear the beep as he unlocks his car from a couple feet away, and I still don’t get how this guy runs one local shop and has so much money. I wait until he’s in the driver’s seat and pulling away before I turn back.

“Help me up.” He says as I look at him, and I’ll never be comfortable calling this guy Joel I don’t think. It’s just almost weird to me, to call him by his first name even though I really don’t know him at all. I just kind of stare at him, dumbfounded, for a second as he extends his arm, wiggling his fingers in a gesture for me to help him. Unless he’s a cripple, I’m not about to help him up like that. He keeps his arm up though, and out of the need of not wanting to embarrass myself, I take the few steps between us, trying to keep as much space as possible around myself as I reach forward and help him up.

He grabs onto my hand and I pull him up, letting go of his grip as soon as he’s on his feet. He smiles at me anyways, and reaches down for his bag. I don’t help him, just watch as he picks it up, and points down the street a little.

“My place is just down there.”


	8. 16

“Stupid cold weather.” I mutter, crossing my arms over my chest, trying to bring some heat back into my fingers. They feel cold, frozen straight through. My bones must be turning to icicles. I wouldn’t be surprised. Now I’m going to have to get them amputated, and I’ll go through life unable to do anything. I wouldn’t even end up on Maury, one of those amazing ‘Their life is fucked up but they’re still an inspiration!’ episodes. I’d be sitting at home, pissed off at the world and the weather and Joel for taking my fingers away from me, trying to plot a revenge out. Except that I wouldn’t be able to, because for one I wouldn’t have any fingers to write my ideas down on, and hey, let’s face it. If you’re going to reek havoc on somebody, you’d at least need some thumbs.

“I like it. The snow makes Christmas feel more…I don’t know, magical.” Joel smiles, shrugging a little bit. I guess that makes sense, coming from some guy who wears bright pink clothing. Maybe he’s on acid, that’d make a little bit of anything seem magical. 

“Where did you say your house was again?” I ask, shivering a little. We’ve been walking for five minutes, and considering he told me his place is ‘just over there,’ I think we’ve been to ‘there’ and back three times over. Another classic kidnapper technique. Lies. Luring me off with sprinkles and the promises of cookies, only to shove me into the trunk of a El Camino and drive off. 

“Are you always this optimistic?” He smiles at me, switching the paper grocery bag from one arm to the other. I shrug, and watch the cement pass by underneath my feet. I find myself looking at his shoes, and they’re those basketball type ones from the fifties and sixties, I’m not sure what they’re called. High tops, maybe? I don’t know, but they’ve obviously been worn for a long time. The laces were once white I’m guessing, and now they’re the color of dirt. They’ve got pen marks all over them too, although I can’t tell what they say.

Silence lapses over us after a second, and I’m almost regretting ever following him over here. I could be drowning my sorrows in a Big Mac with extra cheese right now.

“Hey Ben?” He asks, bringing his non-grocery bag holding hand up to scratch behind his ear. He doesn’t continue though, so I look up at him with my eyebrows raised a little bit, as a sign for him to continue.

He doesn’t, so I fill in the silence with a, “Yeah?”

Joel looks at me carefully, and for the first time, he doesn’t have a massive, toothy grin plastered across his face. He looks sober, he looks really serious. He adjusts the scarf around his neck, then shrugs and says to me quietly, “Life isn’t as bad as you make it out to be, Ben. Just enjoy it, okay?.” I can’t take my eyes off him for a second, as he turns his head to me and one corner of his mouth turns up into a half-smile. “You only get one of them.”

I don’t say anything. I mean, what are you supposed to say to something like that? Instead I just turn my head forward, and watch the street in front of me. There’s a white layer of snow over it, and every now and then there’s a car track imprinted into the road. It kind of looks like the cover of the Christmas cards my Mom used to mail out to the people at our church when I was younger. The only thing missing are the iron lamp posts glowing yellow, and the wreaths hanging on the front doors of the houses. But not everything is perfect, right?

We walk through a little park, and as we’re passing the slide, Joel digs around in his hoodie pocket, for what I’m presuming are his house keys, or maybe a knife to slit my throat with. I don’t think a knife good enough for killing could fit in his pocket though. But hey, what do I know. He could easily stuff my body into one of these tire swings.

I follow him through the park unharmed, and when we get to the other side, he leads me down the block, and it feels like I’ve just entered the Twilight Zone. We’ve crossed from typical inner city bums in the street, to what I’m guessing seems to be a few blocks, full of town houses and small market shops. The faces of these buildings are painted with different colors, and it’s like I just entered GayTown or something. In a non actual ‘gay’ way.

This area is definitely a really artsy part of town. You just get that vibe from it, it’s a crazy looking little place – it looks like only hippies and “alternative” people would live here. I’m not really surprised though, that he lives in this kind of area. He fits in here a lot better then he would in the city, where the suits with briefcases run around.

“How long have you lived here for?” I ask, out of the blue. He actually looks surprised, considering I haven’t bothered to start any means of real conversation since…well…ever. He smiles at me and shrugs.

“Since I moved here from London. And that was like, four years ago.” He stops talking for a second and fiddles with the keys, eyebrows knotted. “I think. Let’s see, well I was twelve when I left. So…” I watch him as he trails off and counts the fingers on one of his hands. “Yeah, four years ago.”

“You lived alone since you were twelve years old?” I ask, incredulously. He smiles at me and shakes his head, pointing to one of the houses. We both stop at a black iron gate as he undoes the latch, and I’m sure anybody could kick this down if they really wanted. 

“No.” He says shortly, smiling at me over his shoulder as I follow him through the gate, and up the brick path. I close the gate behind me, and carefully do the latch back up. “My Grandma brought me over, she found this place and I lived with her until she died last year. She had Alzheimer’s.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“She was ninety-three years old.” He nods, fiddling with the aforementioned keys until he finds a silver one that fits into the lock of the door. I don’t say anything to that though, I just stand behind him and look around. Everything here seems to be very simplistic, but insanely intricate and well thought out at the same time. These town houses and the architecture of the buildings in-between them are beautiful, I wonder who thought up the idea of living in an area that doesn’t resemble a beat up, drug infested alley way. I mean, I noticed that even the street corners have their names on tiles cemented into the ground. “Careful you don’t slip.”

I step inside, brushing my hand through my hair. It’s soaked, I should’ve worn my hood. Damnit. I look up, and Joel isn’t anywhere in sight. The lights are on though, so at least he hasn’t left me in the dark so I fumble around and lose sense of my surroundings before he slices my throat. He’s courteous. I unzip my jacket and look around for a closet, and if this room wasn’t so cozy, it might feel closterphobic. You can tell an old lady used to live here, it’s like I can still smell her or something. She must’ve been one of those old crazies. The walls in this room are bright red, I don’t know any old lady that was ninety-three years old that would paint their living room red. Maybe she was English, and that’s why Joel lived in London. I hear English people are crazy.

“Here’s a towel, I turned the heat on in the kitchen too. It gets cold in here sometimes.” Joel says, startling me as he comes out of nowhere. He smiles at me and gives me a towel. It’s bright blue, and it’s got the initials ‘MC’ embroidered into the corner with gold thread. I bet this was his Grandmother’s too, I bet she haunts this place. 

Shut up Ben.

“Thanks.” I nod, setting it on a nearby table so I can take my jacket off. Joel disappears back into the room he came out of and scared me shitless in. I look around for a place to hang my coat. I don’t want to put it on the back of a chair or anything, because it’s soaked straight through and that’d wreck it. Then I’d have to buy him a new one. Instead I hang it on the door knob, kicking my shoes off too, so I don’t get his carpet wet and snowy.

I rub the towel over my hair, then the back of my neck as I wander through his living room, trying to figure out where he went. I stop by the couch and look at one of the walls, and there are pieces of paper thumb tacked all over the place, and every one has a sketch in black pen or charcoal. There’s a few canvases leaning up against the wall too. I guess the kid likes art. Wait, he really is a kid. Twelve when he arrived here, four years ago…Twelve plus four is…No way.

There is no way this kid is sixteen years old, living by himself. Actually no, wait. Forget the living by himself part, there’s no way in hell he’s sixteen years old in general. He isn’t even legal yet. Well neither am I, but sixteen! That’s almost fifteen, and fifteen might as well be ten and…holy shit. 

“Sorry, I was putting the groceries away.” He states, coming into the room with a grin on his face. “My ice cream was melting.” 

Before I can say anything else, he walks around the living room, plugging in and switching on all of the Christmas lights that he’s hung around the room. I didn’t even notice them until they were lit up, but there are strings pinned all over the walls and ceiling. Maybe I’m just completely oblivious to the world around me, but I just now realize that there’s a tree positioned in the corner of the room. It’s covered from top to bottom in decorations. Some are hand made, but there are a few that you can tell are store bought. Either way, it’s really pretty, and I feel a little pang in my stomach, because I wish I had one too.

“I love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday of the year.” He tells me, walking back across the room. I nod and awkwardly hand him the towel I’ve been holding since he let me use it. He just smiles at me though, shaking his head a little and asking me, “So do you go to your parents’ place for Christmas?”

“No. Well, they live in Annapolis. I’ve been living here by myself for just about a year now.” I shrug, fiddling a bit with the hem of my shirt. He nods, and starts towards the kitchen. I can see the blue and white counter tiles from in here. “How about you though?” I call after him, scratching the back of my neck as I follow. “Why are you living out here, you’re only sixteen.”

I step through the door that connects the kitchen and living room, watching as he walks over the paper bag that’s still sitting on the counter. He starts rummaging through it, and I lean against the door frame. I notice there’s a three-tiered basket hanging above his sink. There are oranges in the bottom level, apples in the middle, and garlic on the top. This is a well balanced sixteen year old. Christ, when I was sixteen years old I was… Well. Not playing video games and eating cheese poofs all day.

“Hey, I’m going to be seventeen in February.” He says, a tiny smirk plastered on his face. I shrug and cross my arms again, watching as he pulls the sprinkles out of the bag, and then places them on the counter beside it. “I didn’t feel like going back to England, so I stayed here.” He shrugs, like it’s absolutely nothing. He starts pulling bowls out of the cupboard and eggs out of the fridge.

“Yeah but how can you afford it?” I ask, standing up properly, because I feel like I should be helping him out. “I mean, I work every single day, and I can barely afford to live here. And I’m in the bad part of town.”

“Why so many questions? I thought we were making cookies.” He smiles, crouching down and opening one of the bottom cupboards up. He digs around for a little bit before he finds what he was looking for. A tin emerges and he pulls it out and stands up. Once he’s set it on the counter, the lid comes off and he pulls a bag of flour out. “So. Gingerbread, or plain?”

“Plain.” 

“I thought you’d say that.” He grins, tapping the side of his head. “I’m psychic.”

I don’t even know what to say or do, so I do the first thing that comes to mind. I stare at him. I stare at him until he cracks up, and manages to get out through his giggles that I, ‘Should’ve seen my face.’ He’s still chuckling a little as he pulls open a few drawers, and starts going through a plastic bag. 

“Hmmm…I have Santa, a bell, a Christmas tree, and some holly.” He pauses, and digs through the bag a little bit more. “Oh. And a reindeer. It looks like a dog though, so I don’t use it a lot.”

“What?” I question, trying to peer into the bag that he’s still rooting around in. What is this kid – literally, kid – talking about?

“Cookie cutters.” He states, placing said objects on the counter, next to the bag and sprinkles. “If you’re going to make cookies with sprinkles, you need to make them festive.”

I pick up the plastic container of sprinkles and study the label, stepping over to the counter and setting them back down where they were before I started messing with them. Joel’s lining the cookie cutters up beside the mixing bowl, carefully arranging them from the largest to smallest. “I like the Christmas tree.” I say, because secretly I think the reindeers look a lot like dogs, too.

He laughs, that same insane giggle from before, and nods.

“We’ll make a forest of cookie Christmas trees then.”


	9. The Flour War

“I don’t believe you’ve never made cookies before.” He giggles, reaching over me to get the bottle of vanilla. I shake my head and mash the wooden spoon down into the bowl, mixing the milk and baking powder together. Never in my life have I met a sixteen year old kid that baked cookies, much less keeps all the spare ingredients in his house. He’s been smiling the whole time, cracking eggs and measuring sugar into the bowl he’s mixing. 

“I can honestly say I haven’t. Not since I was like, seven years old and helping my Nanny, anyway.” I say truthfully, shrugging a bit and stirring the ingredients some more. Joel shakes his head and brushes his hands off, then walks over to the sink. He reaches up, and there’s an old, broken down radio on the window ledge. He carefully tunes it in to some bizarre alternative rocker station – a real one, not the top ten hit maker that plays Jet and Hoobastank on repeat all night. 

“Can’t add my flour ‘til I got some music to do it to.” He smiles, nudging his elbow lightly into my arm as he comes back to the counter. I feel one corner of my mouth curl up into a smile too as I look back down at what I’m doing. Well. I wouldn’t say that, Joel’s pretty much instructing me how to do everything. I’m just following directions. I’m pretty sure he’s never laughed as hard as when I asked what a ‘Tisp’ was. Hey, it’s a legitimate question. “Oh man I love this song.” 

“I’ve never even heard it before.” I shrug, wiping my hands on a tea towel when he takes my bowl away from me. He dumps it into the bowl he’s been working on for a while now, then mixes it for a minute with the spoon he’s dubbed as his. I watch for a minute, leaning against the counter and resting my chin in my hand. “What do we do now?”

“Ummm…” He trails off and knots his eyebrows as he concentrates on what he’s doing for a second, teeth biting his tongue lightly. I just look between his face and the bowl, waiting for an answer. “Well, we’re going to put the dry ingredients into another bowl,” He pauses and destroys a big lump of baking soda. “And then we’ll mix them together, too.”

I reach across and steal a pinch of sugar, bringing my fingers to my mouth while I skeptically watch what he’s doing. “Are you secretly a cook or something?” I question, noticing that he doesn’t have any recipes or hints around as to what he should be doing. He smiles and shakes his head.

“Okay.” He moves the bowl out of the way and reaches for the bag of flour that’s been sitting here all this time, undoing the lid and looking inside. I push myself off of the counter and stand off to the side a little bit, watching as he looks around for a measuring cup. “Aha. There you are. I always lose the three-fourths cup. I don’t know why.” He shrugs, like what he just said made complete sense. I raise my eyebrows, but he just carries on, getting a tea towel and wiping the bright orange cup out.

I don’t really have anything to do, so I just watch what he’s making. There’s a complete look of concentration on his face; eyebrows knotted as he chews on his lip, and all he’s doing is measuring flour out. This kid is insane. 

He gets a knife and levels the thing off, like one pinch of flour is going to completely ruin this batch of cookies. Slowly and carefully, he pivots over and dumps the cup upside down into the bowl, and half of the cup comes back up in a big poof of air. Right away he starts giggling and sets the cup down on the counter, bringing a hand up to his mouth to cover his chuckles. Not that it would matter anyway, because his laughter is getting so intense, he’s almost gasping for air. I raise an eyebrow at him, but he just shakes his head, which is currently going bright pink.

“What?” I ask, after a few minutes pass, and he’s almost calmed down. He lets out a breath of air, one of those ones that follow when you’ve been laughing for a long time, and you just need some kind of sound to end it off with. As soon as I question him though, he just starts giggling again. This time though, he reaches a hand into the bag of flour, and then suddenly there’s a flour-ed finger in front of my face. 

He swipes it over my nose before I can even move away, and then declares, “There we go. Now you don’t have a big patch of non-white on your face.”

“What?” I exclaim, my eyes widening. This sets him off again and he starts laughing, pointing across the small kitchen, to where there’s a tiny mirror beside the sink, hanging up on the off-white wall. I hurry across and bend down, mouth dropping open a little when I see there’s a noticeable layer of flour all over my face, and a more prominent smudge on my nose. Even though I want to be pissed off, I can’t help a little smile crack through. I look like a fucking mime, or some shit like that. I stand up and scowl at him as best I can, even though that stupid grin is still threatening to crack through. “You’re so dead.”

I bolt across the space between the two counters and to the bag of flour, dipping a hand in and getting the powder on three of my fingers. He shrieks and shakes his head, backing up into the fridge, waving his arms back and forth with a terrified look on his face. I laugh and nod, following him, with one very white hand outstretched. When I manage to corner him, he puts his hands over his face and starts shouting, “Uncle! Uncle! Uncle! I give!” Even though I can still hear those damned giggles coming through. I laugh and shake my head, trying to get him in a head lock or something so I can get at his face properly. I manage to pin his arms down and bring my hand up, smudging my fingers over his cheek. When I move away, his eyes pop open and his mouth widens, a grin edging the corners of his lips. 

We both tear across the tiny space to the bag at the same time, trying to shove each other out of the way and keep the ammo away from one another. I manage to get a fist full of the flour before he rips the bag away from me, hurrying back across the room and hoarding the weapon all to himself. I laugh and duck down as he throws – seriously throws, doesn’t even care that we’re in HIS kitchen – a fist full of flour in my direction. I shriek and duck down, but it just fills up the whole area of three feet squared around me and I start coughing and laughing at the same time, throwing mine blindly. I hear him giggling still, then I feel another layer of the stuff rain down around me.

I crawl across the floor and get to where he’s against the wall, managing to get one hand in the bag, even though he’s desperately trying to keep it away from me. His giggles turn into loud laughter as I bring my hand up and smear it over his face. We look at each other, and I’m sure I’m covered from head to toe in white, because he is too. Even his eyelashes have flour in them. And here I was worried about getting his carpet damp.

“You’re so going down.” He tells me, and I feel one of his hands go through my hair, and right now I can only imagine how long it’s going to take to get the stuff out, especially now he’s just mashed a palm’s worth into it. It’ll be all congealed and gross, and I’ll turn into one big cookie too. I reach around him for the bag, but he’s got it positioned between his back and the wall, and I can’t get at it. “Now who’s dead?” He giggles, finally ducking out of my grasp and hurrying across the room. The layer of flour that’s now all over his floor makes him skid into the cupboards, and the bag falls to the floor. A big bomb of white flour goes off, shooting up all over the room. “Aw shit!”

“Fair game now!” I exclaim, trying to get across the room as quickly as I can without doing a repeat performance of what he’s just done. He’s still giggling like a maniac though, and he’s on his hands and knees beside the bag, trying to put as much flour back in as possible before I get to him. I fall to my knees and try to sweep as much of it away from his general reaching distance, but he throws another handful in my direction, and it hits me in the side of the face. I completely crack up, blindly reaching around and throwing whatever I can get at him. 

He tries to get up and slips, falling back against the counters with a thud, and landing on his ass. My laughter hasn’t stopped since I first looked at myself in the mirror, and I don’t think it’s going to anytime soon. At least until I get out of this room, which, for the record, literally looks like the inside of a polar bear or something. Because…obviously things that are white on the outside, such as said bear, are completely white on the inside as well.

I crawl over to him and cough again, trying to wipe my face off on my shirt, but that just makes it even worse, because obviously my shirt is saturated in the stuff as well. In fact I’m sure the skin under my shirt is smeared with flour, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

“You should know I’m a sore loser.” I laugh, maneuvering myself around on my knees until I’m in front of him. He grins and looks up at me, his eyes wide and happy, even though the air is thick with flour. “Which means no argument…or flour war, as it may seem, is finished until I come out victorious.”

Before he can manage to get his legs up to block me, I move forward and push a handful of flour into his forehead and face, and right away he’s coughing and sputtering, but laughing insanely at the same time. I laugh even harder when he tries to open his eyes, which are caked with white. 

His grin goes lop-sided after a second though, his hands moving to brush over the top of my head. A big cloud of white comes out of it, which makes the two of us start laughing again, and I don’t think either of us realize the position we’re in. Literally. He’s leaning against the counter, legs out in front of him, with me kneeling over his thighs. Jesus Christ I’m straddling a sixteen year old! I go to move away before he realizes too, but the hand that was on my head sneaks down to the back of my neck, and his fingers brush over the skin there. I’m pretty sure that little maneuver wasn’t to get any excess flour away, either.

The smile doesn’t fade from his face, and even though I hate to admit it, there’s still a trace of one on mine, as he moves his head forward a little bit, eyes wide and looking up into my own. I stare back at him, hand moving up to his arm as his fingers tickle the back of my shoulder blade, lightly and curiously. 

Wait, what the fuck? Smiling? Staring? Tickling? Just as he leans in a little bit more, I abruptly pull myself away, putting more weight onto my knees, so I’m not sitting on him anymore. His eyes widen in surprise, his hand dropping from my shoulders to the middle of my back. I shake my head and pull away even further, moving my hand off of his arm. I close my eyes for a second and then shift backwards and stand up, running a hand through my hair. I start coughing when the flour shoots down onto my face, and I’m not laughing anymore. Neither is he. He’s just staring at me, dumbfounded, from that same position on the floor.

“I – I should go, I think,” I mumble, looking around and feeling guilty as shit over the fact we’ve both destroyed his kitchen, and I’m about to bolt from it. In fact, I am bolting from it. “I have work in the morning.” I hold on to the counter so I don’t slip, and hurry towards the front door, feeling even worse when I get white foot prints all over the wood floor in the living room. I can hear him coming after me, and that makes me move even faster, grabbing my jacket from the closet and haphazardly pulling it on, and then sliding my feet into my shoes without doing up the laces.

“Wait, Ben.” He says, entering the living room after me. I just shake my head quickly and mumble some lame excuse, reaching for the door knob, and faltering a few times because my hands just keep slipping from the surface. I finally manage to get a good grip, and I all but yank the door right off of it’s hinges as I hurry outside. My feet hit the ground when I step off of his stairs, and the snow crunching under my feet as I all but jog out of his front yard. I can still hear him at the front door, telling me to wait, but I don’t. I close the iron gate behind me though, making sure it locks before I take off down the street, trying to remember the way back through the park.

…

“I know, it’s just. It’s kind of a hassle, you know? And then,” I get cut off by my Father, who’s next to begging and pleading with me to come home for Christmas. Even though it’s only a week away, and I haven’t heard from my family for the last couple. “I have work though. Dad I’m still trying to save up enough money to get a few month’s supply of electricity. What do I spend it on?” I pause and shrug, even though he can’t see me. “I don’t know. All I eat are Big Macs, and it’s not like I buy extravagant things.” I cast my eyes over to that fucking pair of black pants, thrown over the back of my desk chair, still completely covered with flour. There are finger prints everywhere on them. “Hey, can I call you back? I want to go get some lunch, and it’s like, almost one now. I think they stop serving soon.” 

Five minutes later I’m slowly pulling my shoes on, my attention on anything but the laces. I yawn and cast a glance up to the clock above the kitchen counter. Not even nine o’clock at night. I find it funny, the schedule I’ve obtained the last week. Monday, work. Tuesday, work. Wednesday, work. Thursday, work. Friday, flour fight and running away from the instigator or said fight. Saturday, no work and lies to the Father just so I don’t have to face my parents at Christmas. Christmas, for Christ’s sake. 

I get the lace done up and reach for my jacket, trying not to notice the white powdered smear across the back. I stand up and slide my arms in, doing it up in the front, and then reaching for my hat. I feel so fucking retarded wearing this hat, I need to buy a new one. It’s some old trucker hat I got from the second hand store for a few bucks. Only problem is, every kid in this town has one. The general population of them bright pink or black checkers, with sayings like, I don’t know. It’s almost embarrassing just to repeat them. Either way, I slowly pull the hat over my head and then the hood of my jacket over that, trying to disguise it as much as possible. I don’t bother glancing in the mirror as I leave. It’s a lost cause, anyways.

Closing the door to my apartment, I look up and down the hallway. I wish I lived in a nice place like Joel’s. Even if I don’t fit into that stereotype, the kind that would live in colorful places like that, it’d be a lot better then living here. Rank carpet in the hallways, and dirty once-white, now barely washed walls. I shake my head and push my hands into my pockets, holding on to my wallet, because I’m always scared somebody is going to steal it – even if nobody is around.

I get outside, wiping my sleeve over my nose. Cold air always makes it run. And turn red, I really hate it. But looking like Rudolph is “festive” right? There’s wind blowing everywhere, and God. You’d think this was Chicago or something. I haven’t moved three steps from the entrance doors, and already my bones are cold. 

Instead of stopping to think about it, I hurry down the street, eyes locked on the cement below me. I’ve always had that habit, I remember I was walking with one of my friends in grade school once, and they asked me why I always watched my feet when I walked. Like, not even a minute later, I saw a twenty snagged in the pavement. I noticed he kept his head down a lot more after that. 

My body might turn to an ice cube or something before I even get downtown to McDonalds. I shiver a little and wrap my arms around myself, crossing the street in front of the local high school. There’s a bus stop here, maybe I should just take the bus down. Shut up, Benji. Quit being such a pussy. Jesus. I shake my head at myself and zip up my jacket so it’s right up to my chin. My Mom used to always do my jackets up when I was a kid, and every single time, she’d pinch me by accident in the throat or under my chin, and I’d start wailing. Bad memories.

I look up at the massive brick building beside me, and I hated high school. I really did. Well, maybe not so much when I was actually there, but looking back, it was a real dark time for me. I wish I had listened to someone. Getting involved in your boyfriend’s little crime scene isn’t always a good idea. My eyes snap back to the front, because no. Don’t start thinking about that now. I shake my head and close my eyes for a second, walking through the small cliques of kids that are outside. Lunch hour’s almost over, isn’t it? 

Fucking wind. I dig my hands deeper into my pockets and look around, trying to figure out the best way to get out of this jam of people. I hate these kids already, and I don’t even know them. Typical, so fucking typical. I walk past a little group of blondes, all gossiping and showing each other the new ring tones on the cell phones their Daddies bought them.

This school seems typical. Typical students, typical cliques, typical scenes. You’ve got your popular kids out in front, the stoners behind a massive oak tree, football players running around on the field, art kids hanging out on the front steps. Yeah, every high school in the North America is the exact replica of this. Even twenty years ago, minus a lot less hair straightening irons and non-spandex pants.

I wind around another group of people, and look around for my next escape route. This time though, a bright shock of blue hair catches me off guard, and no way. Oh no wait, yes! Most definitely yes! Because oh yeah! You almost forgot! He’s six-fucking-teen, and still in middle school. I almost turn my head away and just run in the direction I want to go, but then I notice something. 

He’s sitting alone, completely quiet, with a somber look on his face as he picks the thread that’s on the knee of his pants. There are no kids within the radius of him, and it looks like he’s got head phones on. He’s kind of turned away from me though, I can only see his profile. He’s got that stupid fucking scarf on though, and the wind keeps blowing it away, and every time he reaches out and grabs it, then puts it back right where it was before, without bothering to tuck it in so it doesn’t happen again. 

I’ve stopped walking. I didn’t even realize until just this second, but I’m standing on the opposite side of the road from where he is, hands frozen in my pockets and ugly trucker hat on my head, watching what he’s doing. He leans down and picks his bag up, and it’s all ratty and much-loved, just like his shoes. The head phones slide off his head and he tucks them into the side pocket, carefully closing the zipper, and then looking around. I manage to duck into a group of students before he sees or notices me. Not that I’m easy to pick out in a crowd, I tend to just blend in to everything if it’s at all possible.

A second later the bell goes off, and most of the people around me start wandering back, weaving through their own groups to go in the direction of their next class. I watch as Joel slowly gets his things together, putting a Thermos of what I could only guess is Macaroni and Cheese, considering how much he buys of the stuff, into his bag as well. As a group of guys walk by him, I can see they’re laughing and Joel just kind of forces a tiny smile and nods, before getting off the bench he was sitting on, and hurrying towards the door. The guys stay behind, laughing, and even from here I can hear the obnoxiously loud British accents that they’re trying to reproduce.

I chew my nail nervously, watching with careful eyes as the guys go in the opposite direction Joel went in. I’m not so cold, or hungry anymore. Shit. I shake my head and bring my wrist up, to see what time it is.

1:03. 

That’s the second time this week I’ve lost a meal to something that somehow involves this kid. And believe me, I’ve tried to get food from an establishment such as McDonalds thirty seconds after the deadline. It never works. I sigh and shake my head, pulling my jacket sleeve down over my hand to double as a glove, as I turn around and start on my way back home.

Maybe I should go home for Christmas, and live in my parent’s basement until I’m forty years old. I don’t think they’d mind.


	10. The Customer Is Always Aggravating

“I can assure you, Sir. These peas aren’t on sale.” I reason, trying to get through this guy’s thick skull, that the fucking peas are not ten cents off. Ten fucking cents, okay. That’s all. I don’t think it’s going to break this guy’s pocket, considering he’s wearing what is most definitely expensive cologne and an overpriced suit. I bet it’s custom fitted. Probably worth a few hundred bucks. I hold onto the peas and look up at him. His eyebrows furrow – they’re thick, black and a little gray – as he waves his hand. “If you want, we can do another price check. But we’ve done that three times, and it hasn’t changed yet.” I pause, and move my hand towards the phone, humoring the guy, even though if he does in fact ask me to call again, I’ll ram this receiver right up his wealthy ass. “It’s up to you, though.”

“Fine, put them back then.” He tells me, his fingers going up to his dress shirt to pull his wallet out of the pocket. I roll my eyes and toss the peas into a spare basket, using the other hand to hit a couple buttons on the cash register. He sets a few twenties down on the counter, and taps his fingers impatiently against the glass case full of lottery tickets. I smirk a little as I watch his actions. His nails are manicured, most likely with clear nail polish. I bet his wife didn’t even ask him to, he just took the liberty on himself. Cause you know, saving ten cents on non-existent on sale peas definitely makes up for spending a hundred and fifty bucks per finger nail.

“Paper or plastic?” I ask lowly, sliding the last item over the scanner and hoping to God that for his own well being, he doesn’t tell me this box of laundry detergent is on sale.

“Plastic.” 

Nodding, I reach down and grab a couple of plastic bags, trying to get this guys groceries into them and him away from my till as quickly as possible. I force my smile on and thank him as I hand his change back to him and throw his receipt into one of the bags. He doesn’t say anything else, just picks his groceries up and sets them into a nearby cart, hurrying out of the store as quickly as possible and keeping his eyes trained straight ahead. I sigh and pick up the intercom, paging for somebody to come get these fucking peas before they go bad. 

It’s about a week and a half since my Dad phoned, and Christmas is in three days. In the back of his head, I think he believes that I’m going to show up on the twenty-fourth and surprise them all. It kind of makes me feel bad inside, because I know when he goes to sleep Christmas night, after eating way too much and complaining about it because he thinks his belt feels too tight, he’s going to make excuses and say I got stuck in traffic, even if I don’t really even have a car, because he’s the only one who believes in me anymore. Everybody else in my family, they’ve all turned their eyes to my younger brother because maybe he’ll be able to do something good with his life. Me, I’m not directly in front of them, so they like to pretend I don’t exist, I guess. I haven’t talked to my Mom since October.

I glance up to the clock, and thank the fucking lord. Any more of this and I don’t think I would’ve made it. Nine hour shifts should not be attempted by anyone, especially at this particular establishment. I close the little ‘Express Lane’ light off and sign myself out, and fuck it. Somebody else can count the money, I’m not doing it right now. I’m beat, I don’t think I slept at all last night. No, actually I know I didn’t sleep at all last night. 

Walking down one of the narrow aisles in this fucking dump of a work place, I start towards the employee’s room, undoing the knot I’ve tied in the apron at the middle of my back. I’ve never really figured out how to tie a bow when your elbows are at awkward angles and you can’t even see what you’re doing. Either way, I pull the strap over my head and push myself through the bright red door that states it’s for “Employees Only.” 

I can’t wait to get out of here, with all these cheesy Christmas decorations and fake snow sprayed on all of the windows, it feels like the walls are closing in on me. Shaking my head a little, I turn the combination on the locker I’ve called my own since I started working here, open the flimsy door when the lock clicks, and toss my apron into it. When I turn around, Bryan is coming into the room, and I’m guessing he gets the next shift. Good luck.

“Hey,” He smiles, coming over to where I am, and messing with the combination on his own locker. “You just leaving?”

“Yeah, can’t leave fast enough, actually.” I shrug, closing the metal door and spinning the combo a couple of times to make sure it’s locked properly. Bryan starts cracking up, and asks me if it was a bad day. “The worst. Our customers suck.”

He grins and nods, shoving his bag into the locker and pulling his apron off of the hook, “Amen to that,” He tells me, nodding a little and feeling around for something else. I lean against the closed metal door and watch as he pulls a water bottle out and takes a drink from it. 

“Hey do you remember that guy who always used to come in, he had the crazy hair and the clothes?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound like a complete lunatic. He grins and nods, saying something along the lines of how could he forget. “Yeah, well have you seen him around lately?”

Bryan shakes his head. “Not lately. Why?”

“Just wondering.” I shrug, pushing myself away from the lockers and standing up properly. He sends me a crooked smile and closes his locker door, smiling at me as he says he’s got to get to his till because he’s late already. I nod and swear when I realize I’ve forgotten my jacket inside my locker. Jesus Christ. 

…

I hate how it’s been snowing all day, it just makes it even harder to get around. Maybe if I wasn’t such a whiny little brat I’d say it’s pretty, but I am so it’s not. It’s stupid and I wish that it would just melt and go away. I’m glad I live in apartments though, at least I don’t have to shovel the stuff.

“Hey, do you know a Joel…” I trail off, eyebrows knotting a little, because I realize I don’t know his name. Here I am, five blocks out of my way, at this kid’s high school, and I don’t even know his name. “Okay, um. He’s got blue hair and-“

“He’s most likely in the art room.” This chick tells me, shrugging a little. She’s some random girl I managed to stop long enough to ask. Like I said before. Typical. Typical blonde hair, brown eyes, hoop earrings, and lip gloss. I’m so glad I dropped out. “That’s the only place that weird kid ever is.”

Before I can tell her to fuck off, or thank you, or even ask for directions to the alleged art room, she’s flying across the soccer field, towards another gaggle of blondes with brown eyes, wearing hoop earrings with lip gloss smeared all over their faces. Okay maybe not all over their faces, but that would be pretty funny. What was I trying to do, oh yeah. Art room.

So. You’re probably thinking I’m messed up, stalking some sixteen year old kid, don’t lie. You know that’s exactly what’s going through your head right now. But the fact is, half way between hell and home, I found myself thinking about how I never even apologized for getting… Yeah, you don’t believe me do you. Truth be told, I found myself thinking about him, the end. And that’s never happened before. So before I even realized what was happening at that moment, there I was, crossing the street between normalcy and insanity, even though fifteen minutes earlier at work, all I had really wanted to do was go home and sleep forever.

“Hey,” I state, tapping some random guy on the shoulder. He’s got black hair and he’s wearing a grey jacket, so I’m guessing he’d give better directions then some chick who’d point me towards the bathrooms or something. Actually that’s a lie, the only reason why I picked him out of the crowd, is because he’s the only guy here I think I could reach the shoulder of. He turns around and looks at me, and this guy’s crazy looking. He’s got like, five rings studded through his bottom lip alone. “Uh, can you tell me how to get to the art room?”

“Yeah,” He nods and points over my shoulder, to one of the two buildings I’m standing in the middle of. Apparently one is a middle school, and the other is the generic high school. “It’s on the top floor, you can’t miss it. It’s got spray paint all over the door, and half way down the wall.”

“Okay, thanks man.” I force a half smile, and he just shrugs and turns back in the direction he was going, placing a set of headphones over his ears. I start towards said building that he pointed me to, and I wonder how some random girl knew that Joel was in the art room. Maybe she just came from there. Either way, I hurry along the wide stretch of concrete that connects the two buildings, because it’s as cold as ass out here. Obviously, else it wouldn’t be snowing, but seriously. It’s so cold it’s almost overkill, my breath isn’t just showing, it’s freezing too. Is that even possible? I don’t think it is. It should be.

I get to the main doors and pull one open, and I wonder why classes are still in if the holidays are only a few days away. That’s kind of weird. What day is it today, anyway? Friday? I guess that makes sense then. Whatever, I’m not a student so it doesn’t matter. Thank God. I shuffle down the now pretty much completely empty hallway, save for a couple freshmen rooting through their lockers, and look around for a staircase. Or a elevator, that would be even better. But what local high school has an elevator? 

Undoing the top three buttons of my jacket, I finally manage to locate a staircase, and jog up the first flight of them. At least the place is heated, actually it’s pretty nice and warm in here, which is surprising. By the time I get to the top floor though, I’ve undone all the buttons and the zipper, because it’s almost too hot. I hate that, going from extreme cold to extreme heat, because then you’re all so close to sweating and gross because it’s such a climate change.

Sure enough, when I set my feet on the floor, I can see the graffiti that guy was talking about. You can tell this is the floor where it’s all creative arts and stuff, there are paint drops over the shiny floor, and there’s even a few Christmas decorations hanging around. I wouldn’t be surprised if I discovered some from Halloween, because it seems like that’s just the type of place that this is.

I reach the door separating the art room from the rest of the school, and just stand outside it for a second. Okay, so, you’re here. Now what? You’re such a retard, you never think shit like this through. I should just apologize and leave, just so I don’t have it bugging me, sticking in the back of my head for another week. I sigh and reach for the doorknob, turning it to the left and pushing the door open slowly.

Just like that girl said, the first thing I see is a head of blue hair. He’s standing in front of a canvas, and I wonder if he’s even realized I’m here, because his back is to me and I can see what he’s painting. I wish I knew something about art, so at least I could praise or make fun of him accordingly. Stop being so fucking stupid. I shake my head and slide into the room, closing the door behind me, making sure it shuts with a ‘click’ loud enough for him to hear.

I use a little too much force trying to get the aforementioned click, because the door slams shut, and in return makes both of us jump. He turns around and his eyes are wide, eyebrows raised high on his forehead, and way number one billion and three that you always manage to make yourself look like a complete moron. Once he’s registered that there is somebody standing in front of him, and that somebody is me, the look of surprise turns to one of…even more surprised. I force a little smile and try not to notice the way he’s got flecks of paint all over his face.

“I…um…” He trails off and raises his eyebrows a little more. “Wow.”

I don’t say anything, because true to my word, I don’t know what to say. So I shrug and try not to look at the ground, because it’s a nervous habit that I’ve got. I hate looking people straight in the eyes, I always look away or cough or something so they don’t see right through me. But this time I don’t, I keep my gaze pinned straight ahead, even as he bows his head to set his paintbrush down.

“Uh, I asked… Some girl… Where you…” I pause and try not to mentally kick myself in the ass. Oh wait, I’m already doing that. I pause and try not to physically kick myself in the ass. “Where you, might be.”

“Oh.” He nods, and an awkward silence comes over the room. I close my eyes for a second, and he starts fiddling around with the art supplies laid in front of him, on a desk. I’m still wondering how that girl knew he was up here, but I don’t bother asking him. I don’t think… Like, last week when I saw him… I don’t want to bring it up, because I don’t know. I don’t think he’s the person I thought he was, especially when he’s here. “What did you come here for?” He asks after a span of silence that possibly could’ve stretched eight hours, because it was just that terrible and unpleasant.

“I,” I run a hand over the back of my neck and pick my gaze off of the floor. “I wanted to apologize for…”

I look up just in time to see him shake his head. “…Don’t worry about it, I…”

“…For ruining your carpet.” It slips out before I can even register it, because Jesus fucking Christ, who says that? Who says that, when they’re standing in the same room with some sixteen year old that tried to kiss them no more then two weeks ago? I do, there’s your answer. Benjamin fucking Madden does.

I’m almost afraid to look up, to see what his reaction might be, but I know I have to, so slowly I move my head up and look him in the eyes. And he’s grinning from ear to ear, trying to hold back laughter. Because I know the same thing is running through his mind: Who SAYS that?

I force a little smile and shrug my shoulders, as he giggles a tiny bit, and turns around to his painting again. I can’t really tell what it is from here, it looks like a big smudge of orange and yellow. I awkwardly stand there, hands in my pockets, wondering if now that I’ve apologized if I should just leave. Just as I’ve set my mind on doing that because it sounds like a great idea, he turns back around, and I can see he’s screwing the lid back on a can of paint. Oh.

“You want to make it up to me?” He smiles, eyebrows raised, and this is so weird. This isn’t the same guy I saw last time I was here, or even five minutes ago for that sake. This is the guy that drove me crazy through the month of November because he would never stop buying macaroni and cheese, and asking about when the peppermint ice cream went on sale. This is the guy that threw flour at me, and tried to kiss me because the moment was just that perfect.

“What did you have in mind?”


	11. Mental Boxes

“…two Cokes, a Big Mac, and…” I trail off and look to my side, where Joel is standing, looking up at the menu. He wrinkles his nose and chews his bottom lip, hands digging around in his pocket as he tries to decide what he wants for dinner. Yeah, you could imagine my surprise when after asking where he wanted to go, he answered me with McDonalds.

“Do you have anything that isn’t deep fried?” He asks the guy behind the register, the same guy that’s served me since I moved here, paper crown and all. 

“Um…” Paper Crown Man trails off and looks to the side, looking flustered for a second before he shrugs and tells us that, “All of the items on the Atkin’s approved diet have less then three carbs total.”

“Oh, I don’t care about carbs.” Joel smiles, shrugging a little and drumming his fingers on the counter. “I figure the part of food that tastes good are the carbs.” I lower my eyes to the ground and smile a little, flipping through my wallet for some cash. “I’ll just have some fries, and some ketchup - extra ketchup – and…and one of those tiny apple pie things, the ones in the little red box.”

The guy hits a few buttons on the cash register and tells me that, “All together, that’s $10.31.”

I dig a ten dollar bill and a couple coins out of my wallet and set them down on the counter, making sure I count out a penny so I don’t get sixty in return. Joel leans against the counter and looks around the room, and he’s had this really small smile on his face since we left his school. He catches my eyes, and before I even think about it, my gaze is darting down to look at my wallet, my cheeks getting a little bit warmer. I stuff my wallet into my back pocket quickly, trying not to shake my head at myself, because who does that. Jesus.

“Hey, can I have one of those hats?” I hear Joel ask. I look up and Joel’s pointing to the guy’s paper crown, with a completely serious look on his face. The guy’s mouth kind of drops open and he stutters a bit before answering.

“They’re promotional only, Sir…”

A grin spreads across Joel’s face, and he leans in a little bit over the counter, like he’s making a drug deal with this McDonalds employee or something to that extent. One of the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile as I watch him say, “I'm sure you've got one sitting around in the back.” He pauses, and that grin widens across his face even more. “Come on, I'll give you five bucks for one.”

The McDonalds guy looks completely lost for a second, eyes widened a little more then normal as he watches Joel. Come on, it’s not like that’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard. I’m sure McDonalds gets some real doozies, there’s a mental institution a few blocks over, that’s so not the weirdest thing this guy’s ever heard. But still, the look on his face hints that I may be wrong.

“Uh, I have to talk to my supervisor.” He nods, glancing around the room and then hurrying into the back. I can only imagine their conversation, talking about how some crazy twenty year old wants a paper crown. I bet people think Joel’s older then he is all the time, I did. Then again I guess he doesn’t really look ‘old’, the bright colors and dyed hair just diverts your attention.

“I hope he gets me one. Those things are so cool.” Joel states, looking around the room with a vacant expression on his face. Okay so even if he looks twenty, you can definitely see the whole sixteen year old thing shining through sometimes. I shrug and bring a hand up to my mouth, chewing on the edge of my thumbnail. “I’ll try to get you one, too.”

“That’s okay.” I state, and he giggles and shakes his head, leaning over the counter to look at the buttons on the cash register. Maybe he’s got A.D.D. or something. Hey, maybe he’s just really insane like I initially thought he was. 

A few minutes later, Paper Crown Man comes back from behind the ice cream machine, with what appears to be an unfolded hat in his hand. He smiles at Joel and sets the hat down on the tray, and I bet they let him have one because they think he’s ‘touched’ or something like that. I wouldn’t be surprised. Joel beams anyway, reaching across to get the hat before we even get our food. He unfolds it and looks at the designs on the front for a second, and then I hear a, “Oh man.”

“What?” I ask, looking at him as a few greasy items are put on our tray. He grins at me and shakes his head.

“It’s just so cool.” He shrugs, twirling it around and bringing it closer to his face to read the slogan down the side. “I can’t believe they have crowns. I wish I worked here.” 

I think I hear a sarcastic snort from the guy that sets the last of our food down on the tray. Rolling my eyes, I snatch my receipt off of him and pick the tray up, waiting for Joel to direct us towards the table where he wants to sit. This food smells gross. I bet they spit in it.

…

Ten minutes later I find myself sitting directly in front of the back wall of this local McDonalds, you know which one it is. The big assed glass window that shows you the playground area where little kids with sticky hands and ketchup on their fingers run around in circles with no shoes, screeching and pulling each other’s hair. Every McDonalds has one, and every time I try to avoid it the best I can. Looks like this particular day, I haven’t been so lucky.

And hey, have I said that I’m eating lunch with a sixteen year old with blue hair and purple eyes? Not to mention the paper crown sitting on his head that just kind of makes everything a little bit more unbelievable.

“So do you go to school?” He asks me, picking a fry out of the red and yellow paper container before he proceeds to dip it into the literal mountain of ketchup he’s got on a napkin. I take a sip of my Coke and shake my head.

“Dropped out at the end of eleventh grade.” I shrug, taking a massive bite of the disgustingly soggy Big Mac. They always look so good on the menu and in the commercials, then as soon as you get it, it’s like a glob of dead meat and wet bread in a cardboard carton. With a little limp lettuce thrown in, you know. For flavor.

“Have you ever thought about going back?” He questions, and right away I shake my head. Go back? For what? I’m set for life. I’ve got a job that hardly pays rent, I’m not married, have no kids, a family that barely lives in the same state as me, and every day that passes I think about going to the Doctor only to get told I’ve got a severe case of depression. “How come?”

I look up at him, and I’m pretty fucking sure there’s confusion written all over my face. How come? That’s something new. Okay wait, back track. He asked me if I ever thought about going back to school. You shook your head. Shaking of the head equals a no. He didn’t tell you that maybe it’s just a good idea you didn’t, he didn’t say you were stupid, he didn’t shrug and go back to eating his food that you bought him, he asked why? How come you haven’t?

And how am I supposed to answer a question that I’ve never been asked before?

“…I don’t know.” I state after a second, my voice flatter then I anticipated it to be. He raises his eyebrows a little, breaks off a corner of his apple pie, and brings it up to his mouth. I watch as he slowly chews it, then reaches across to pick up a cheap paper napkin, and wipe the corners of his mouth with it.

“Oh.” He says, looking over the table and right into my eyes. “Well maybe you should.”

…

“Mom, Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I told Dad that I wasn’t coming, I have to work Christmas Day anyways…” I trail off and lean down to undo the laces of my boots, trying not to get my hands completely soaked from the melted snow – otherwise known as water – covering them. Even the laces are sopping. “No Mom, they’re not taking advantage of me. He asked who was available to work on the twenty fifth, and I volunteered.”

“Ben, you know Christmas is a tradition at our house.” She tells me, her voice disappointed, and she always does this. She tries to guilt me into doing things that I don’t want to do. It’s the thing that I hate most about her. The only thing I hate more, is how for the most part, I always give in.

“Well I’m sorry,” I snap, finally getting my boot kicked off. “I wasn’t exactly thinking about tradition, when last year at the same fucking family gathering, my ex-boyfriend almost gave Grandma a heart attack because he pulled a gun on-“

“Chris was very sorry for what he did, Benjamin.” She says quietly, and how does she manage to still pull this shit on me? I feel my blood boil, because she did not just say that. How can you say that to your son, the same son that was abused by said boyfriend for almost three years? To the same son who had this ‘boyfriend’ almost shoot his fucking cousin – point blank, even – for giving him a hug at a family gathering? How do you say anything at all, except for I’m sorry?

“Fuck you.” I state, and I hear her cut herself off before she even gets to speak. I’ve surprised her with my little outburst, the therapist said that those should’ve been gone by now. Good for fucking me. “Quit fucking making excuses for him, Jesus Christ. I hate you sometimes, you know.”

“Ben!” She exclaims, like the last five minutes haven’t happened, and she didn’t bring up something I’d be more then fucking willing to forget. She sounds offended, she sounds pissed the fuck off, and I’ve never been happier, living here in my literal dark hole with my pants that are too tight and shoes that are too wet.

“What?” I scream back, and my voice echoes off of the empty walls in my apartment. I hear my Mom exhale, loudly, and I can only imagine the face she’s making. Fingers pushed to her temple, trying to think back to what the therapist told her to do when I get this way.

“I just think that you should try talking to him. Honestly, Ben. He’s cleaned himself up.” She tells me, her voice really soft, like she doesn’t want anybody to hear, including myself. I shake my head, and we are not going through this again. “I was talking to his Mother at the church Christmas par-“ I lean forward and hang the phone back on the receiver, closing my eyes for a second, and trying to think of something bright, so I don’t have to throw myself back into the thoughts I tried to keep in the back of my mind from all those years ago.

Something bright. God don’t think of… An image flashes through my mind of him, and I feel my breathing start to speed up. I feel trapped now, inside this dark room. I feel scared. I lean forward and rest my forehead against my knees, trying to think of something, anything other then Chris. Flowers. Puppies. Sunshine.

Getting beat in the face with a chain wrapped around his fist. Being afraid to leave my room or take the chair away from the door. Sobbing into my Dad’s chest because I was just that fucking scared. 

I take a big gasp of air, and to anybody else, I’m pretty sure it would sound like I’m dying. I can’t cry now, not when I’ve been strong for such a fucking long time. No Ben, don’t… A big sob comes out of my chest, and I can’t even control it. Think back, think back. What did Doctor Garish tell you to do? Okay imagine a massive box, and you’re in the store room in your brain. Take all the bad memories off of the shelves, and throw them into that box. Another strangled cry escapes from my throat, and forget dying. This is the painful torture that you endure while getting trapped in a burning house, right before you die. No the box, concentrate on the fucking box.

Okay close the lid and just fucking forget it. Put the box back on the top shelf, and push it all the way to the back, so you can’t even see it anymore. And you can’t feel it, or remember it, or even think about it. I close my mouth and try to breathe through my nose. I take long, ragged breaths, and they’re even louder now that there’s nobody else around. Not even someone screaming at me to stand up, and stop crying like a fucking baby.

I can’t do this. Oh God I need to open my eyes, but it’s like they’re glued shut, while scene after scene that I’ve lived through plays over top of them. You can fucking do anything you want, say anything you want, claim anything in the whole wide world, but if you tell me that you’re an abuse survivor, you’re fucking lying right to my face. You never get over it, it’ll haunt you for the rest of your life, no matter how much you want to kid to yourself. You’re fucked up for life, and there isn’t much you can do about it.

I need to get out of here. The dark is terrifying me, and the silence is deafening for the first time in a long while. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and try to open them, even though everything feels like it’s not corresponding with what my brain wants it to do. I manage to bend down and slide my foot back into my shoe, not even thinking to do the lace up before I grab my coat and hurry towards my front door.

I don’t even notice the phone ringing behind me.

…

I hurry down the front stairs of my apartment, nearly slipping twice because of the mix of rain and snow that’s started to stick to the painted red cement. Wiping the sleeve of my jacket over my nose isn’t such a good idea, because I’ll just get a face full of wet since the fabric isn’t even dried from when I got home. I do it anyways, not even caring. A crying little eighteen year old running down a bad street in this town isn’t always the greatest image to put across.

I don’t even know where I’m going. When my feet hit the pavement though, I just start running. 

Twenty minutes later I find myself passing the grocery store, and my face is completely frozen from the mix of tears and snow. My lips are turning blue I’m pretty sure, and my lungs feel like there’s a billion needles stabbing them every time I inhale a shaky, deep breath of the below zero December air. Maybe I’ll run across the country, all the way to Florida or something. It doesn’t snow there, right? It’s always sunny, and maybe a change of scenery would be good.

Maybe that’s what I thought months and months ago, and maybe that’s how I ended up here.


	12. Fade

_“What the fuck is your problem?” He screams at me, and tears spring to my eyes from the abrupt stinging on my cheek. He slams my bedroom door behind him, and I can hear the pictures hanging in the hallway, on the wall that my Mom carefully stenciled light houses on last summer, bouncing off of the plaster. My face feels like it’s burning, and even though it hurts even more when I softly touch my fingers against the red flesh, it’s the only thing that I can think to do._

_“I don’t have a problem.” I say softly, trying to keep my voice calm. I try not to think about the fact that he just rushed through my childhood home and up the stairs I’ve fallen down far too many times because they’re just too steep when you’re drunk and creeping back up them at the age of sixteen, only to slap me across the face when he tried to get into my room but found out that I locked the door. The thing that earned me the slap though, is the fact I bolted up from my desk to try and hold the door shut when he started banging on it. Eventually he just broke the cheap lock holding it together, and I got a large crack in the skull from the edge of the door hitting me in the forehead._

_“Yeah, it sure doesn’t sound like it, Ben. Just fucking move.” He hisses, trying to get past me. The tears that have been gathering in the corners of my eyes from the smart of the slap turn to those of fear. I try to shake my head, and I’d call my Dad, but my parents have gone out for dinner. I knew I shouldn’t have told them that I’d be fine by myself. Dad had some hesitation when he was leaving, I could see it. I should’ve told them I was scared to be alone and that I’d really like it if they could just go out another night. Not that my Mother would’ve cared anyways._

_“Chris I really think you should go home.” I whisper, my eyes trained to the floor. He just gives me a hard shove in the shoulder, and I fall back against the wall with a gasp. Chris, he’s a good boyfriend. He takes care of me, he really does. He makes sure I’m okay, and he loves me. I think he loves me. My Mom says he loves me, and that we make a good match. I wonder what the folks at church would think about me dating a person of color. Mom says that his personality shines though, and that they’d see that before they made their judgments. “Chris…”_

_“What?” He screams, turning around sharply, and I feel my breath hit the back of my throat. His eyes are bright white but bloodshot and red at the same time. “What the fuck do you want?” I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the wall, trying to breathe through my nose, because my mouth isn’t working. I shake my head and manage to mumble a ‘nothing.’ “Fucking good. Go get me a fucking drink, I feel like I swallowed a sheet of sandpaper.”_

_“O-okay.” I nod, turning around and fumbling with the door for a second. Just as I manage to get it open fully, he gives the back of my head a sharp shove, and I fly into the door frame. Chris, he’s a lot bigger then me. Sometimes I feel a lot smaller then I should, though. I don’t really know why._

_I don’t look back, I just hurry down the stairs, trying not to notice the lumps of dirt stuck in the brand new white carpet, because my Mom will get mad at me for them, and I don’t really want to think about that right now. Lately I’ve learned to take one second at a time, and that’s been helping lately. It makes me feel a lot less crazy then I already do. And I feel near insane sometimes. I close the front door, because sometimes Chris forgets. He’d forget his head if it wasn’t attached, I think._

_Hurrying into the kitchen, I carefully open the cupboard and pull out a glass. I make sure it’s clean, running it under the tap just to be completely positive. If it’s not clean, I get it thrown back in my face. I carefully dry it off and set it on the counter beside the fridge, trying to remember if he wanted anything specific. Just as I’m thinking this, I hear a loud scream of my name from the top of the stairs._

_“Sorry, I’m coming!” I call back, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. I reach to pull the fridge open, but the phone catches my eye. Carefully looking through the kitchen doorway, I glance at the stairs to make sure Chris hasn’t started watching me. I slowly extend my hand and grab the phone, pulling the cordless off of the base. I feel like if I breathe too loud that he’ll hear me, and what do I do now? I glance around the kitchen and hurry towards the pantry, trying to make no noise at all as I open the door slowly so that it doesn’t squeak, and then close it behind me. I feel around for the light, and flip the switch. Light floods the room, and if it wasn’t so pitch black through the window that shows our carefully landscaped back yard, I might feel a little safer._

_I bring a hand up and feel the side of my face as I turn the phone on, and my skin feels hot. I bet my face is as red as the canned beets my Mom keeps in here. Carefully, I push the zero button, and raise the phone back up to my ear as I wait for the three rings it takes to reach the operator._

_“I need some help.” I whisper, turning away from the door, but closing my eyes so I don’t have to look out the window._

_“Help?”_

_“Yeah, I… I’m really scared. I need the number to, to… a help line, some kind of-“ My eyes widen when I hear a squeaking, and it’s okay, it’s probably only the cat, he likes to sleep in here. You didn’t make sure the door clicked behind you, it always swings open and scares Mom when she’s in the middle of making dinner and singing along to the top forty station. I turn around and the phone immediately drops from my grasp when I see Chris’ angry face staring back at me. “I- I…” I trail off and shake my head, trying to back up as he starts walking towards me. He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes tell me everything he’s thinking. Me and Chris, we’re really connected like that._

_“You little motherfucker.” He hisses, grabbing my shoulder, and his hand practically envelopes it. I just shake my head and try to breathe properly, but all it seems as though I can do is gasp and it feels as though I’m choking. My back slams up against a shelf that my Mom keeps her home made jams on, and I hear the glass jars clink together behind me. “I’ll fucking kill you, what the fuck were you fucking thinking.”_

_I shake my head again and a low sob comes out of my throat. My whole body is practically shaking with fear, and I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack. My skin is crawling and now everything feels so cold. His other hand comes up and grips my chin, forcing my head back against the shelf. I wheeze and close my eyes, trying not to say anything that might make him even more angry with me._

_“I-I’m sorry, I… I…”_

_I open my eyes and now he’s shaking his head, almost smirking at me. Before I can blink or tell him how stupid and sorry I really am, his fist connects with my bottom lip, and I’m not sure if he felt it, but I’m pretty sure that he’s split the skin. The back of my head connects hard with the shelf, and a few jars fall off, smashing against the floor and I don’t do anything for a second, I can’t really even feel anything, the pain hasn’t even set in yet. The ache doesn’t have time to set though, because he punches me again, right in the same spot, and my neck snaps back from the force._

_Letting out another low sob, I try to bring a hand up to touch my lip without even thinking about it. He grabs my fingers and bends my arm up behind my back, and I can almost feel the bone slowly snapping. Before I hear any cracks, he twists it the other way, and I feel my wrist give and the bone breaks. Without even thinking about it, I scream loudly, and I wonder what the operator thinks. Maybe he’s already hung up._

_“I’m sorry Chris, I, I, Chris! Chris I’m sorry! I am!” I cry, my eyes squeezing tightly shut as he pulls me off of the shelf and then slams me into the wall beside it. Once again my head hits the surface with a dull thud, and on the other side of the wall, I faintly hear something fall from the shelf and break on the floor. “Please, please. I’m sorry.” I whisper, but he doesn’t let up. I hear him fumbling with something, and when I open my eyes, I see the blur of his gun coming out of his back pocket. “No, no, Chris, please. Please, no, I…”_

_He puts the gun to my temple and stares me right in the eyes, and even though they’re not as bloodshot as when he came in, they’re ten times as terrifying. I can’t breathe anymore, I’m having a panic attack. The Doctor tells me panic attacks come when I’m in closed in spaces or thinking about thinks that bring me stress, like school and my friends. Secretly I think that Chris brings them as well._

_“One more fucking word, Ben.” He hisses, and his gums are so bright compared to the shade of his skin. “Ben I swear to the fucking Lord above that I will blow your brains out. You’ll see them splattered all over the wall, I’ll make sure I aim so you’re alive long enough to see what they look like.”_

…

I watch the snow fall around my feet as I swing back and forth slowly, hands frozen to the chains of the old swing set. Once when I was eight, I fell backwards off of a swing, and my hand got caught in one of the chains and I had to have fifteen stitches. Since then I’ve held on pretty tight. I exhale through my nose, and a big puff of white air appears, swirling into the cold atmosphere soon after. I close my eyes for a second and tilt my head back, and when I open them again, all I can see are stars.

I always wanted to live on a star when I was little. I thought that would be so amazing, you’d get to see everything. Every person on the earth, the sun, the moon, just everything that nobody has ever seen before. When I told my Mom, she laughed and said that was one of the silliest things she had ever heard, that I would burn to death if I tried to live on a star. I stopped dreaming a few days after that.

The stars still blind me sometimes though. When I’m sitting alone in my dark apartment and I look outside, sometimes I still think it might be possible for me to just disappear and end up way out there. They seem so bright, even though there’s so much fog and chemicals. Some nights they just seem so breath taking. I remember when I moved out here, watching the stars was one of the things that kept me sane. I haven’t done it much anymore. I’ve been far too cynical to think about things like that.

 

I sigh and stand up, wiping the back of my hand over my eyes. I look around the empty park and dig my hands into my pockets. The cold isn’t so cold anymore. I guess if you stay in the wind long enough, you get used to it and nothing hurts or feels numb. The cold air stings my nose every time I breathe in, though. 

“You’re going crazy.” I whisper, starting across the snow covered grass. I head in the opposite direction of the way I should be going, and I don’t think twice about it. Instead of stopping to mill over the billion and one reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this, I head forward, until my feet are on cement instead of snow.

I walk down the street slowly. One foot carefully in front of the other, mind racing to keep the things I need to forget out of it. When I get to the doorstep of where I was originally headed, I stand there and look at the front of the house for a moment. There’s a string of blinking Christmas lights in the front window, and every other light looks as though it’s off, except for the living room one. I squint, and I can see the outline of a TV, and an old Christmas special playing on it through the cheap, slightly see through curtain. I’m not sure if it’s Rudolph, or Frosty the Snowman.

I’m not sure how long I stand there for. But minutes pass, and I can’t will myself to go in. I don’t know what I’d do, or say, or how I’d act. Instead of opening the gate, I turn around and carefully lower myself to the ground. I sit on the curb and wrap my jacket a little bit tighter around my stomach, and maybe my lips have turned blue already. I wouldn’t be surprised. My nose is red and my lips are blue, sounds like the perfect combination to me.

I bend my knees up and rest my chin against them, watching the house across the street from where I’m sitting. There are no lights on, but there’s a snowman sitting on the front lawn, decked out in a black hat and red scarf. I feel a little smile crawl over my face when I see that not only is there a carrot stuck in the snow as a nose, there’s also one…somewhere else. I wipe my nose on the sleeve of my jacket and rest my head against my knees, eyes wandering over the street.

If there was a city on a star, I’m pretty sure that this is what it would look like. It’s so colorful here, and everything that my childhood should’ve been made of. It’s the kind of place that’s almost made out of too much magic to be real. I blink a few times, trying to get the snowflakes that are stuck on my eyelashes to fall off. I sniff again and close my eyes for a second. When I open them again, it’s almost as though the snow has started falling even faster.

My eyes drift closed for a second time, and I don’t bother to open them.

…

I groan a little and squeeze my eyes closed, trying to block out the sound of people talking and car engines roaring. Where am I? I open my eyes slowly, cracking one open and then the other, trying to piece together last night, and how I ended up here. What time is it? I look down one side of the street and then the other, trying to figure out exactly what is going on.

I struggle to move, but it feels as though my whole body is made out of stone. Maybe I’ve frozen myself solid. My eyebrows knot as I try to unfold my legs, and my pants make a crunching sound from the ice. I don’t think I’m even going to be able to get up properly. Maybe I’ll just sit here until next Spring, when I thaw out.

“What are you doing here?”

Frozen or not frozen, my head snaps around when I hear someone speaking behind me. My eyes widen when I see Joel, fingers resting on the lock of the gate, keys in his other hand and bag thrown over his shoulder. He’s got about three times more clothes on then I do, and for the first time, he doesn’t look like the insane one out of the two of us.

“Nothing,” I whisper, shaking my head. My voice doesn’t even work anymore. “I…”

“Are you okay?” He asks me, undoing the latch on the gate. It swings open, and he starts over to where I’m sitting. I don’t respond, instead I turn my head back to the street, watching as people walk up and down the road. There are wreaths hanging everywhere, almost on every single door, and even some of the wild trees have decorations on them. I really like this place. “Ben? You look like you’re-“

“I’m fine.” I snap, not thinking twice at the tone in my voice. I hear the gate creak again, and I think he’s finally had it with me. I’m not surprised, I’d have given up on myself a long time ago. I’m about the closest thing to a hopeless case that you’ll ever find. Everybody has given up on me. My Mother, my siblings, my teachers, my boss, everything. If I knew where Chris was, I’m pretty sure he’d have given up on me by now too. Maybe I should move to Tibet. Nobody would miss me if I moved to Tibet. Nobody would even ask why I was moving to Tibet. Because out of all of the places in the world, who chooses a shitty place like Tibet.

The gate squeaks again, and not one second later, there are a pair of dirty shoes standing beside me. I turn my head a little and look at his legs, and he’s wearing pants that look like they’ve seen a closet full of moths. They’re camouflage, like guys in the fucking army wear, and they’ve got a few patches on the legs. I sigh a little and turn back to look at the street, trying to ignore him as he lowers himself down to the ground and sits beside me.

“You sure you’re okay?” He asks me, and his voice is so soft.

I turn my head to the side and rest it against my knees, just like last night. Except now everything is bright and the picture I’ve got in the back of my head isn’t so clear anymore. And I don’t see Chris, I see this crazy ass bastard that has confused me for months, and I’m pretty sure that all he can see is me. I feel a few tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, and I have to blink a few times before they stop.

“I don’t know.” I whisper, and I look at his eyes. They aren’t purple anymore. They’re green, but they’ve still got those flecks of gold around them. If anybody that I knew could ever be extraordinary enough to live on a star, it’d be Joel. Even his eyes are magical, and I’ve never met anybody with magical eyes before.

“You should come in out of the cold.” He tells me, and his voice is soft too. A blue Chevy drives by us, and as it comes into my line of view, I see that there’s a massive evergreen Christmas tree tied to the roof of it. I shake my head and close my eyes, and when I open them, Joel is still there. I’ve never known anybody to put up with me long enough to keep my eyes closed for a few seconds. They always bail when they get their first chance. Because I’m just not worth it. I’ve never been worth it. “You’ll catch the flu.”

“I don’t care.” I mumble, shaking my head again. A little smile curls up at the edge of his mouth, and he folds his arms over his knees. He’s wearing striped mittens, and they look like something his Grandmother probably made him. He’s cut the fingers off though, and there are loose strings all over the place. I look up at his face instead of at his hands, and the snowflakes get stuck in his eyelashes, too.

“I do. So come in.”


	13. Wet Clothes on Christmas Eve

“Should I ask why I found you outside on the curb of my house at eight in the morning?” He whispers, sliding into the chair opposite mine at his kitchen table. He pushes the mug of hot chocolate he’s made me across the surface, and I shake my head slowly. He doesn’t say anything else, but he chews on his bottom lip for a second and I don’t know what else I should add. I’d hate to be him right now, stuck with me. Because what is he supposed to do? I know he’s not the kind of person who would just shove somebody out their front door. Then again I don’t really know him. And maybe that’s why this whole situation is so weird. 

I lower my gaze to the vinyl surface of the table. It looks like something out of a cheesy seventies movie, bright fucking red with matching chairs. The one I’m sitting on has this massive rip almost right across the seat, and he’s patched it up with some duct tape. I’m pretty sure the set belonged to his Grandmother at one time. Nobody else would have such ugly furniture, other then a dead English woman.

“So um…” He pushes a finger through the condensation my mug has made on the table top. He draws a makeshift Christmas tree, and neither of us say anything for a while. He doesn’t finish off what he was going to say, and I just sip at my drink, not even flinching when it burns my mouth. “It’s Christmas Eve, huh?”

I try to refrain myself from rolling my eyes as I mumble a, “Yeah.” I glance up at his face, and he just nods and then frowns a little bit. I’ve broken the kid’s spirit already, and I’ve been here what. All of twenty minutes? Way to be, Ben. Fuck up the happiest kid you’ve ever met. “Were you going somewhere or something? I could always just go, if you had somewhere that you needed to be…” I trail off and push my cup away from me. Immediately his head shoots up, and he whispers a soft ‘no.’ I shake my head and start to move away from the table anyways. That was the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, and I feel horrible he’s had to put up with me for this long, when I can tell he doesn’t even really like me at all in the first place. “No, I… I should probably just go anyway.”

“Ben, you really don’t need to.” He shrugs, still chewing on his bottom lip a little bit. I wonder if that’s his nervous habit. I wonder if he’s noticed what mine are. I shake my head again, automatically. “At least stay so I can make you some breakfast?”

I open my mouth, and my mind races with excuses that I could maybe possibly throw at him. I can’t, have to work this afternoon. Gotta go over to my parents place for the rest of the day, since it’s Christmas Eve. I should wash my hair. I need to take the trash out. Sorry, I think I had a mental breakdown last night, and I should probably go and find some psychological help for it.

None of them seem good enough for the situation though, and I think he takes my complete silence as a yes, because a little smile curls up one corner of his lips, and he moves to get up from the table.

“I’ll stay for breakfast if you’re sure I won’t get in the way.” I state, and he shakes his head, smiling a little at me. “But, um. Nothing fancy.” His eyebrows raise a little when he smiles, and he nose wrinkles up at the top. A lot of things happen when he smiles, I’ve noticed. Like, my heart will kind of… jump, or something. It flops against my rib cage whenever Joel grins at me and my heart tells me not to do that, because every time it makes it hurt a little. Or something. “I can just have some toast. It’s really not a big deal.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He tells me, smiling even more as he pushes his chair back and stands up. I just kind of sit there and look up at him as he looks down at me, and there’s that damned heart flopping again. “There are some towels in the bathroom. If you want, you can dry your hair off.”

“I, uh…” I trail off again, but he just shakes his head and points through the living room, where the bathroom is attached I guess. You know, thinking about it, it’d probably be in the interest of good manners on my behalf if I dried myself off a little. I don’t want to ruin his things. I want to tell him it’s no big deal though, that I can just hang my jacket over the heater, but he’s turned away from me and has half of his body bent over in the fridge as he rummages around for whatever he thinks would serve as a good breakfast. I stand there for a minute and a hand comes up to pull at the tiny hairs on the back of my neck, and like, I feel really out of place.

Like if I ran again, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

I glance around the kitchen and my hand drops down to my side. It’d be really easy, he probably wouldn’t even notice I’ve gone until he calls me in for breakfast. I bite the inside of my cheek a little as I head out of the kitchen, towards the front hall. I’ll just go home and fall asleep, pretend that the whole Christmas thing doesn’t exist. That sounds like the best idea to me.

But when my hand reaches out to turn the door knob, I remember last night, how the first person I thought about running to was him. And it’s like that one thought acts as cement to keep my feet firmly on the ground. I move my hand back to my side, and then it goes to the top of my head and my whole body feels nervous. My eyes dart around the room, eyeing the type of wood his floor is made out of, and the color of his walls. Red oak. The same shade of green as his eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help at least?” I call, turning around and closing my eyes for a second. I can smell cinnamon, I wonder if he made more cookies last night, while I was sitting, frozen like a block of ice, to his sidewalk. I try and think about what I would’ve done if he had showed up on my door step instead. I can’t even imagine a good enough answer, because I don’t think that there is one. I most likely would’ve taken the back exit of my apartment so I wouldn’t have had to even deal with it. That’s one of the problems that I have, if something stresses me out, or even scares me, I just pretend that it’s not there.

“Ben,” He calls back, a tint of laughter to his voice. “Seriously, go and dry yourself off. I really don’t want you to get sick.” I can hear a smile in his voice, and right away I nod and nervously run my teeth over my bottom lip. I step inside the kitchen doorway, and he’s getting two bowls out of the cupboard. Maybe drying myself out a little wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

…

“Are your eyes closed?” He calls from the other room, and I can’t believe the kid is doing this. An almost complete stranger sitting on his couch; shoes and jacket hung at the front door, wet pants folded over the heater, and soaked t-shirt strung over the bathroom’s shower curtain rod. Would typically freak you out a little, right? Some random you met just a few months ago via your local grocery store, sitting on your living room couch wearing nothing but boxers with a shawl draped around their shoulders. A shawl your deceased Grandmother kitted with her ‘very own hands’, none the less.

“Yeah, they are.” I reply, letting my eyes slip closed as I tighten the red and blue striped monstrosity around my shoulders. Even if the heater is on it’s still mid-December, and I’m sitting here in nothing but damp underwear. I hear him giggle a little and a few things clink together, followed by footsteps shuffling closer to where I am.

“Okay good, but keep them closed.” He whispers, and I can hear him set something down on the coffee table in front of me. I nod my head and my eyebrows knot together as I hear him hurry back into the other room, and then come back with something else. He sets what sounds like a bowl or something down beside his tray, and then giggles a little bit more. “Wait, I’m almost ready.”

A smile curls up the corner of my mouth as I listen to him fumble around, and it sounds bad. It sounds really, insanely scary, but I don’t mind that I’m sitting here with my eyes shut tightly, listening to this guy arrange what could be scalpel ling tools for all that I know.

But they’re not some kind of weapon to kill me with. He’s not Chris. Joel’s made me breakfast. Fucking breakfast.

“Are you finished?” I ask, my voice cracking a little bit since I haven’t used it in a few minutes. I hear a commercial come over the TV, and instead of Judge Judy, I’m listening to some infomercial about a wondrous product called the Magic Bullet. It sounds like some kind of sex toy, but from what I’m hearing, apparently it’s an all in one blender for every housewife’s kitchen.

“Yep. Okay, open them.”

I blink my eyes open, focusing in on Joel first. He’s kneeling beside the coffee table, a grin from ear to ear, and his eyes are wide and happy. I smile a little at him and then I look over to the coffee table, where he’s set up what we’re eating for breakfast. There’s a tray sitting in the middle of the table, with two bowls beside it. 

“Ice cream?” I ask, laughing a little as I realize that said bowls have a good half a carton of ice cream each, with the little bits of candy cane in them. He grins and nods, handing me a spoon, and then picking up one of the bowls.

“It always makes me happy when I’m sad.” He tells me, offering me a bowl, and then reaching for the other one as he gets off of his knees and sits down beside me. I smile at him and then dig my spoon into the mountain of ice cream, and I can’t believe that this guy exists. How does somebody like him live in the real world? I just don’t get it. “I also brought some cookies, and the toast that you wanted.”

I look at the tray, and sure enough there’s a plate on it with a good five or six pieces of toasted bread on it. A few of them have red jam on them, and the rest are just plain. I feel another smile creeping across my face as I shake my head a little, and lean against the back of his couch. He crosses his legs and reaches for the TV remote, setting his bowl on the arm of the piece of furniture long enough to lean across and get another shawl from the over stuffed chair at his left.

I look around the room as Joel flips through the channels, lingering on children’s cartoons before stopping on a channel just because Santa’s face is splashed across it. He’s got a Christmas tree all lit up, and the lights on them are the really cheesy ones. The plastic candles with the cheap yellow ‘flames’ as the light. There are a couple random strings of multi-colored ones too. 

“Don’t forget your cookies. And toast.” Joel says, pointing the remote at the tray still sitting on the table. One corner of my mouth raises up into a half-smile, and I nod. “Remember when we made cookies?”

The half-smile turns into a full-smile, as I nod and whisper a, “Yeah. I do.”

He sighs a little with this tiny smile on his face that I don’t even have words to describe, and he turns back to the TV. A few more channels change, and then we’re watching the music station, which is playing all Christmas remakes and shitty attempts for good songs. “That was a good night.”

I take another bite of my ice cream and try not to wrinkle my nose when I see Mariah Carey’s boobs almost falling out of her ‘Santa’ suit. Everything about America sucks, including the entertainment. I wish I was from somewhere other then here, like Joel. At least London had…well, I don’t know. But they didn’t have Mariah Carey.

…

Joel pulls down my t-shirt from the curtain rod and lays it over my arm carefully, on top of the other articles of clothing I own that we’ve been collecting from all over his house. They’re rough and kind of damp still because of the whole sitting-in-a-puddle factor. “You should probably get some clean clothes. These are kinda gross still.” He says, rubbing the sleeve of the t-shirt between his thumb and pointer finger. I nod and shrug a little.

“It doesn’t matter, I can just go home and change. Not a big deal.” I state, and he frowns a little and scratches the back of his neck. He looks like he’s thinking really hard about something.

“I’d give you a change of clothes to wear, but I think I’m smaller then you.”

No shit you’re smaller then me, Joel. I think that if I wanted to, I could lift you up with one hand. 

“Yeah, probably.” I agree, trying to pull my t-shirt over my head with one hand. I manage to get one arm through, and a head somewhere lost in the middle, before I feel Joel assist me. He helps get my head through the head-hole, then tucks the tag in at the back of my neck. I force a little smile and try to keep the queasy feeling out of my stomach as he smiles back – a real, genuine smile – and takes the pile of clothes from my hands so I can get my other arm through. 

He sets the portion of my wardrobe down on counter, beside the sink, and pulls at the front of his sweat shirt a little. I notice he looks a little nervous for a second, as he tells me that he’ll, “Be in the kitchen, just give a yell if you need any um, help.” I nod and watch as he slips through the door way and into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. I stare at the back of it for a second, then snap out of my little daze and reach for my pants. He’s right. They do feel gross.

Not five minutes later I open the bathroom door, dressed fully in the soggy clothes, and start through to the kitchen. I yawn a little as I come around the corner, and all of my bones ache. Well I guess that makes sense. I shake my head a little, hoping to vindicate some of the haze from around my brain, and clear my throat a little as I enter the room. He’s leaning against the counter, sipping what I’m pretty sure is a cup of tea. This guy is seriously English through and through. And I’m sure that if I were to meet her, a lot like his Grandmother. 

“I should probably go…” I shrug, stuffing my hands into my pockets, and I feel really awkward. He nods though, setting his cup in the sink carefully. We both stand in helpless silence for a few seconds, before I clear my throat again, and awkwardly gesture in the general direction of the front door. “Alright. Well, thank you for everything. Really. I…” I trail off and offer a little smile, an awkward and ‘what do I do now?’ type of expression.

He returns the gesture and just stands there as I nod and turn around on one foot, and something feels out of place. It’s a weird feeling, but I guess something would feel out of place, considering the circumstances. I’m just gonna grab my jacket and get out of here, go home and sleep the day off, then go back into work tomorrow. Like it was any other day. And maybe if Joel comes through with a couple boxes of macaroni and cheese, I’ll give him a discount.

“Hey.” His voice rips me out of my thoughts, and I abruptly turn around and look at him. He’s pushed himself away from the counter, and there’s a slightly confused look on his face. I wasn’t ignoring him, too absorbed in my own thoughts, was I? “I was uh, thinking.” He nods, chewing his bottom lip a little. I wait for him to continue, and he does. “Do you want to go out for supper or something? It’s almost five now, I figure…”

I nod, and a little smile comes across my face. What was I expecting, waiting in the snow all night for something that I had no idea if it would actually come or not? I don’t even know, but I can honestly say I never anticipated what has happened today. Ice cream and toast for breakfast, sitting on his couch all day watching TV with him, wrapped up in a shawl none the less. Cause really. Who wears a shawl. Either way. What’s a little dinner to finish off a day like that?

“Yeah, dinner sounds good.” I smile, and this time I don’t dart my eyes away or anything. He smiles back and clears his throat, rolling his eyes after because I think we both know there’s a red blush creeping over his cheeks. I pull at the front of my t-shirt awkwardly, because it really does feel disgusting. “Hey, can we actually go by my place first though? I really need to change.”

He nods and smiles up at me as he walks past, and I follow him as he goes to his front hall closet and pulls out a jacket. It’s bright blue and it’s a few shades lighter then his hair. I lean against the wall and watch the way he carefully wraps the rainbow scarf around his neck, and pulls his little toque with the wool tassels over his head. He looks up at me after a second and his eyes are wide and happy, and smiles a little.

“So where do you live?” He asks, opening his front door. I push away from the wall, and follow him out onto his front stoop. He carefully closes the door behind him, and rubs his hands together a little, raising them up to his mouth and blowing on them, trying to warm his fingers up.

“Oh, just across the way.”

He grins at that, a giggle coming from his lips as he starts down the stairs, and I slowly follow after him. He looks over his shoulder at me, and asks, “Across the way, huh?”

I smile back and nod, falling into step beside him as we start down his front path.

“Yeah, exactly.”


	14. Merry Fucking Christmas!

When I was younger, I always imagined myself at twenty living somewhere out of the city. 

Wealthy businessman at a young age, working in some kind of industry that didn’t please me at all but put enough money in my pocket. And I always saw myself coming home on only one day of the year: Christmas. I thought about it a lot, the whole idea of coming home with my “serious girlfriend,” or fiancé or whatever I would end up with, so I could be just like my brothers. I’d be grinning from ear to ear when my Mom opened the door, bags in my arms with all the presents I’d bought for them at some overpriced and overrated department store. And they’d love it.

Never in my whole life would I have imagined myself sitting in the middle of a Walmart in-store restaurant bordering on adulthood, because it was the only thing open on Christmas Eve. I mean, since when does that happen? And not even that, but since when would I be sitting across from a sixteen year old eating cold, greasy fries and drinking half-flat soda as last minute shoppers bustle up and down the aisles behind us? It just doesn’t happen. At least not in anything short of one of those stupid indie films that they only show at local festivals. It doesn’t even happen in real movies.

But alas, I guess that’s what happens when you’re me. Because come on. When you think of a Christmas dinner, or any kind of ritual and tradition on Christmas eve, you’d probably imagine opening a couple of presents in front of a nice warm fire. You’d see kids leaving typical cookies and milk for Santa, before going to bed so their parents can empty the presents that they’ve been keeping in their closet for months upon months, and pile them under the Christmas tree.

I, on the other hand, end up here. And I don’t understand how that works. A cheesy family restaurant buried in-between rows of stocking stuffers on sale for half the prices, and cheesy eighties movies that they try and shove off to people for nine bucks. And among all this, the two of us managed to find the cheap store-owned restaurant. Plastic hamburgers, cold fries and all.

“Well, I can honestly say that was disgusting.” I state, tossing my grease covered napkin onto the red tray between us. He giggles and nods, taking a drink of the Coke he ordered before he wrinkles his nose and sets it back down on the table. Even he can’t find anything great about this. In fact, I will officially take this cold, half-frozen fry, and stick it up my nostril if he does.

“At least we can think about this next Christmas and laugh.” He smiles, looking around at the cheesy decorations around him. My mouth drops open a little, and no he so did not just do that. “I kind of like the music they’re playing though. It reminds me of home.” 

I always chickened out of dares, anyway. And I’m sure the fry would appreciate being left where it is. Gotta respect the fast food, after all.

…

“You ever have one of those Christmases where it just doesn’t feel like Christmas at all?” I whisper, keeping my head down and concentrating on the crunching sound my feet make as I walk. It’s been snowing since lunch time, and it’s still coming down hard. The weather station keeps a warning on the screen that says we might have a blizzard, or a ‘White Christmas,’ or whatever else they can make up that is at that level of cheesy. 

“Have you?” He asks me, and I turn my concentration from the pavement layered with snow, to the person walking beside me. It’s like he’s studying me or something, his gaze trained on my face as I glance at my feet, and then look back up into his eyes.

“That wasn’t supposed to be a rhetorical question.” I murmur, and he smiles a little and then turns his attention in front of us. He shakes his head and then shrugs a little, and I guess that means a no. Instead of questioning the subject, I chew my bottom lip a little as we continue walking down the slick pavement. The only thing I hate about snow, is the ice that always follows. Why? Because I always somehow manage to slip and fall on my ass. Hard.

We walk in silence after that, unless Joel points out something like the first star of the night, or asks me why I think somebody is driving down the road with only their right blinker on. The darker it gets, the easier it is to see our breath in the air. When we reach my apartment building, neither of us think twice before I lead him up the stairs.

“Do you like working at the grocery store?” He asks me, slipping under my arm as I hold the door open for him. It seems like it would’ve been a lot easier to just walk around me, but I’m slowly learning to just not question anything that Joel does anymore. Seems like everything’s got a reason, whether I can understand it or not.

“No?” The door closes behind me and I shrug a little, leading him through the lobby. “The only reason I work at all in a dead-end job like that, is because I need enough money to keep my apartment. Not that it’s really even worth it at all.” I gesture to the room we’re in, the main lobby, with it’s faded and torn wallpaper, and very early seventies carpet. And not even the disgusting “vintage” shit everyone is into nowadays. This is the for-real, gross and caked with little bits of God knows what, yellow and orange shag rug from 1975.

Joel keeps close to me as I lead him down the narrow corridor, past dilapidated door frames and carpet peeling away from the wall. It’s on the other end of the scale compared to his fancy townhouse, in a nice area of the city with it’s high ceilings and hardwood floors. Kind of like me. And I can only imagine what’s running through his head. I mean, I managed to keep him on the other side of the street when I ran in here to change before we went to dinner. But what am I supposed to do now? Say, ‘Alright… Well, see ya!’ and leave him in the middle of a community infested with drugs and Lord knows what else, just so he wouldn’t have to see my current shitty living situation? Believe it or not, even I’m not a big enough bastard to do that.

When we get to my door – Apartment #407 – I feel a little ball of nervousness in my stomach. He took me in for absolutely nothing, completely spoiled me without asking for anything in return, and now I’m leading him into a for real death trap. As soon as we get in the door, I wouldn’t be surprised if he stepped on a loose floor board and got a nail through the middle of his foot. Of course with my luck, he’d get some life threatening infection and then die or something. But it’s not only that. It’s the fact that I don’t even have anything to offer him. Like, no food. No nice decorations. No Grandmother’s shawls. 

I close my eyes for a second and turn the key in the lock, even though it doesn’t have a point. I own absolutely nothing of importance. Like, nothing. The only thing worth anything are the clothes on my back and the wallet full of McDonalds receipts in my pocket. You can steal those if you want, but honestly I don’t think you’d get much money for them. I open the door slowly, and I have to use my hip and push against it a couple times before the hinges finally give, and it swings open. I think that Joel half expects me to turn on a light or something, because he waits outside while I step through the door frame, trying as hard as hell not to just make a lame excuse and then slam the door on him. 

“You wanna come in?” I ask softly, turning around to face him as I gesture to the empty room behind me. Well. Empty, except for the cheap mattress pushed up against the far wall. And the desk with my little pile of clothes on it. Shut up Ben. He looks a little confused, but nods anyway, carefully stepping into the room. I frown a little and shut the door behind the two of us, and for the first time ever, he looks awkward and not sure of what he should do. Good. Welcome to my entire existence as a human.

“You live here?” He asks, and it’s like he doesn’t realize what he’s said until it’s too late. His cheeks go a light shade of pink and he shakes his head, closing his eyes for a second. “I didn’t mean it like that…” He trails off and I just stand there, completely awkward and unsure of what I should say to that.

“Okay.” I mumble, shrugging a little. He just nods and, “I’m just going to um. I’m going to change my pants because I… They’re wet.”

Way to go. Absolute fucking best thing that you could’ve said at a moment like that. You’re obviously invisible now that you’ve made a lame excuse to escape an uncomfortable situation and you’re fumbling around, hands shaking a little as you try and find a pair of pants that are clean. And of course you’re taking even longer then you should at any other given moment, just to be completely sure that he can see that – Hey! Your pants are in fact, not wet. That in all honesty, you just changed them a few hours ago when you came back here last time with the same God damned excuse. Jesus Christ. 

I keep my eyes lowered and my actions frantic as I finally just grab a random pair of work pants and hurry into the bathroom, grabbing the lone flashlight I own on the way. Maybe when I come back out, Joel will have already left. He’s obviously a lot smarter then I am, I mean that much is obvious. I shut the bathroom door behind me with a click, taking the second that I’ve got to myself to lean my back against it and look up at the ceiling. Because that’s what I do in my spare time, obviously. I groan and pick my head up, then drop it back against the door. It’s not as hard as I anticipated it being, and pretty much all that happens is my head makes a nice dent in the cheap wooden surface, and I’m sure there’s gonna be a crack left behind. 

I pull myself up and shake my head a little, turning the flashlight on before I set it on the counter. It doesn’t really do much, except bring a murky light to the three inches of previous darkness in front of the bulb. But I figure that as long as I own one, when people ask me why I don’t buy myself a battery operated lamp, I can say, duh. Because I have a flashlight.

I kick my shoes off and undo the zipper of my pants, trying hard to ignore the fact that my jacket is soaked and dripping all over the place. Probably would’ve been smarter to change that instead of perfectly clean and dry pants, but what can I say. Hindsight is always a bitch.

Five minutes later my hand is on the door knob, and I’m seriously considering just jumping out the window. I’m only on the third story. If it doesn’t kill me, maybe I’ll at least be paralyzed. I stand there in silence for a minute, carefully setting the pair of pants I just took off on the counter. I nervously pull my bottom lip into my mouth and eye myself in the mirror, and I look sad. Not sad as in oh sob, my life is so horrible and I just can’t go on, but sad is in you can see the fear and confusion and terror in my eyes because of this whole situation.

I almost jerk in surprise when I hear him asking me if I’m alright from the other room, because who takes that long to change pants. Fucking pants. Not bothering to answer, I turn around and swing the bathroom door open quickly, jumping a little when I realize that he’s standing right in front of me, with his hand raised to knock against said surface. He looks equally, if not more startled, then I’m feeling. I force a nervous smile and he lets his arm drop back down to his side.

“Sorry. You were just…” He trails off and his eyes slide to the side. We both know that he’s looking for something to take his attention so he doesn’t have to look at me. I know this trick. It’s one that I use quite often.

I immediately nod, and- “Yeah. It’s okay. Yeah.”

His eyes snap back up to mine and he smiles a little. All I can do is force a small one back, and I don’t know why this guy gets me so fucking nervous, but he does. Like I’m not a tense person usually. God knows I’m two inches short of being arrogant, and I’m definitely scared, but way too sure of everything at the same time… I could go as far as saying that I’m fucked up. No, I could most definitely say that I’m fucked up. Three years of therapy and what conclusion do I come to? That one right there.

“Umm.” I let out a little wheeze of air that could maybe possibly be an awkward laugh, but it’s way too gawky to count as that. And I’m most definitely sure that it wasn’t anything close to a laugh. A gasp maybe.

He makes the same noise, a little jolt of air and a nervous second of laughter before I motion towards the front door, and forget it. I’m just going to put my God damned shoes on and walk him home. How fifth grade does that sound, seriously. I don’t trust anyone on this block though, or the next eight over for that matter, to not touch him if he’s alone. At least if I’m with him I can… I don’t know. Scream like a little girl and run for the police. I’m a good runner. I’ve spent enough years practicing. 

I edge past him and move to get my shoes from the bathroom, but he catches my attention before I can get as far as that.

“You smoke?” I turn my head around to where Joel’s pointing to the little table beside my bed. No, Joel, actually I just like having a half-full box of cigarettes and a barely working lighter. I think it looks nice, adds a real flare to the room. What’s that called? White trash?

I shrug. 

“Not so much anymore.”

He nods and his hands go into his pockets, and I move back into the bathroom to grab my shoes, closing the toilet lid so I can use it as a makeshift seat. I can hear the floor boards creaking in the other room as Joel moves around, and then the mattress squeaks. I slowly tie my shoes up and shake my head a little, because how ridiculous is this situation. Very. That is your answer right there, all you need to say. Very ridiculous.

I try not to look at myself in the mirror caked with I-don’t-want-to-know’s and other happy things as I head back out into the belivitchenroom. Why? Because I might catch myself checking my…self out, again, and that scares me okay. Scares the complete and utter fuck out of me, just for the simple reason that the last time I bothered even caring what I looked like, was when I was trying to impress this big fucking fixation that I’d now like to call my ex-boyfriend. And I don’t need or want a repeat performance of the last three years of my life, thank you.

And, before I go any further, I’d like to take a moment to gloat on the fact that yes, I did indeed invent the belivitchenroom. What happens when you mix a bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room together? And no this isn’t a really bad joke. The outcome is the belivitchenroom. I should explain that to Joel sometime. I bet he’s the only person in the existence of the whole God damned world that would appreciate that little discovery as much as I do.

Shutting the flashlight off, I go back into the other room, where the creaking of the mattress from before is confirmed. I realize that Joel’s taken the opportunity to curl up on my bed, and from the looks of it, fall asleep. What? How long was I in there for, anyway? Maybe the kids a narcoleptic. Wouldn’t phase, or surprise me. The little bastard’s even on my side! My mouth drops open a little I’m sure, because what. the shit. This night just keeps on getting better and better it seems. And by better of course I mean worse. 

I sigh and go over to where he’s teetering on the edge of my mattress, eyes closed and lips pressed together with his hands folded under his head. God he’s tiny. He takes up like a square foot of the entire bed. 

“Joel?” I whisper, crouching down beside him and shaking the mattress a little. His eyes flicker, and his eyebrows knot together, but after a second his features relax and he tilts his head down into the blankets. Damnit. I shake the mattress again, pressing my palm down right on the area beside his stomach, but even when I push a few times and the whole bed bounces, he doesn’t even seem to realize I’m doing it. I groan a little and attempt to pull back, but instead, I somehow manage to knock myself off balance and fall backwards.

My hands go out and I try to hold on to any kind of object before I fall into the wall and crack my head open or something. I don’t know how I managed to lose my balance in the first place, all I know for sure is that I’m falling because I don’t have the best balance anyways, and for some reason my body thinks it’s a great idea to shoot my arms out in different directions. One of my hands grab onto the blanket that Joel is sleeping on, and the whole bed lurches forward. Because come on. Obviously I don’t weigh only one pound.

One pound or not, I slam into the wall behind me, my back hitting first and then my skull following. I hear the plaster and wallpaper crack, because seriously. This is not the most well built of all places to live. As if you couldn’t tell already. And of course, to make matters worse, there goes my entire damage deposit. I groan a little and one hand goes back to survey the damage done to my head. And when I look back up, Jesus fucking Christ, that whole little comedic escapade seems to be for nothing, because yet again. No response from him. At all. He just makes this soft noise and rolls over so his back is facing me, then he sighs a little and I can only imagine he’s falling into a deeper sleep. “Oh, my God. Is this for real?” I grumble, trying to get my legs from underneath me, and apparently my knee joints think it’s a good idea to lock up. “Joel!” 

So now I’m completely pissed off, agitated, and trying to brace myself against the wall as I get to my feet. 

I manage to stand up properly and I swear to God above that if he doesn’t wake up within the next one second I’m just going to shove him off the edge of the mattress and hope for the best. I hold his shoulder with one hand and roll him over on to his back, and he is seriously flat out. What the shit, maybe narcolepsy is a for real concern here? Shut up. Who randomly falls asleep on some strangers bed though? I frown a little and lightly tap the side of his face, and his forehead wrinkles up. 

“Joel?” I mumble, resting my palm against his cheek. It’s really warm. He stirs a little and makes a soft groaning sound out of the back of his throat, one hand coming up to his face to rub over his forehead. I move my hand away as his eyes flicker a few times before they open properly, and he looks confused for a second. I force a little smile and, “Sorry. I thought you might want to sleep in your own bed or something.” Wow Ben, that didn’t sound like an asshole comment at all! No wonder everybody loves you, you big fucking retard. “I mean. Um.” I crease my eyebrows and he just shakes his head and pushes himself up on one elbow, still slightly dazed I think. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He whispers, running a hand through his hair. It’s electric blue and contrasts with his eyes. “Sorry, I just didn’t sleep very well last night and… And I guess I dozed off.” A little laugh comes out of his mouth and he looks up at me, and his eyes are still so tired looking. I feel guilty about waking him up now, even if I did almost kill myself in the process. 

“Alright. Well.” I pull back a little and stand up, looking around the room and resting one of my hands on the back of my neck. Nervous habit much? He slowly sits up properly, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress and scratching the top of his head a little. I’m still wondering how long I was in the mother fucking bathroom anyway. What, like fifteen minutes or something? Either that or he was just really, really tired. But who falls asleep like that anyway? I shake my head and take a step back, towards the door. “I’ll walk you home.”

He nods and stands up, and he’s got a little smile on his face as he asks me, “Since I’m only a kid and all, huh?”

I falter, and I’m sure it’s visible. I’m getting better at recovering though, because I manage to nod and laugh softly, awkwardly, as I turn around to face him. He’s standing up and stretching his arms above his head. There’s a strip of pale skin clear across his middle, where his hoodie has ridden up and his pants are too low. “I… I guess.” Way to go, Ben. We’ve got the frenzied actions under control, now let’s just get the whole ‘asking the brain before we talk’ thing there too, and we’ll be set for life!

He drops his arms back down to his sides and smiles at me, reaching back up to tug his shirt down before he follows me out the door. His hair is all pressed to the side from where he was sleeping on the mattress – and hey, here’s the real kicker, not even THE mattress. MY mattress – and his cheeks are red because of the cold to warm ratio when you enter a room after coming in from outside. Not that my apartment is in fact at all warmer then it is outside, cause believe me it’s not. The lobby however, is heated, which probably explains all the homeless people that I see the landlord kicking out each night. Anyways.

Neither of us say much as we leave my apartment and head outside. This time though, when we reach the front doors of the lobby, there are two guys coming in with pierced faces and shaved heads. One of them has a tattoo on the side of his neck, and his friend’s mohawk is bright green. 

“Disgusting.” I mutter, and Joel looks over his shoulder at me and smiles. One of his eyebrows raise up a bit, and he watches the guys as they wander towards the barely working elevators. They’re laughing and patting each other on the back as they disappear behind the closing doors. I shake my head and Joel pushes the front door open, holding it for me as I put my hand out to keep it open as we both step through. 

I jog down the stairs in front of Joel, sliding my hands into my pockets. I don’t know what the point of this particular action is though, because the fabric on the inside of my pockets are frozen cold from being wet earlier. It just makes my hands feel clammy and uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable. I just want to get this kid – yes, KID – home so I can come back here and go to sleep. Unfortunately I don’t have work tomorrow, what with the whole Christmas thing and all. Damn manager and his damn family. I don’t understand why he laughed when I asked if I could work three shifts on the 25th. It’s a legitimate question. Especially for a scrooge such as myself. I shake my head a little and I’m sure a scowl appears on my face. Because that’s what I do. I sit there and stew inside, getting more and more pissed off and never getting any-

I feel a massive lump of something wet and cold hit the back of my neck, and then there’s ice cold water dripping down the middle of my spine, and I’m pretty fucking sure that I scream like a little girl. My back arches and apparently tries to run away without the rest of my body, and then fucking hiccupped laughter comes from behind me. You know when someone laughs so hard, they start just layering the giggles on top of one another, and it just becomes this mess of what sounds exactly like hiccups, because they can’t breathe very well? Yes, this is what’s happening right now. And said sounds are originating from a certain sixteen year old. I’ll give you one guess who that is.

After getting over the initial shock of biting cold, I spin around, somehow managing not to fall because that seems to happen to me more often then not, and he’s standing at the bottom of the stairs with another snow ball in his mittened hand. Mittened? Well he’s wearing mittens. And there’s a very large and I can only guess very cold ball of snow in there. He grins, from ear to fucking ear, and throws it very much in my direction. I manage to duck before it knobs me in the forehead, but I can hear it hit the ground behind me. This kid has got a very, very good aim. His giggles turn into full on laughter as he scrambles to get some more ammo, and why does everything we do end up in a war of some kind? I guess they have a lot of food fights in high school cafeterias. Sorry. Not funny, definitely not funny.

I bend down and try to scoop some snow into a half assed ball, but every time I try to pack it together, I push too hard and it just crumples into nothing. Well I guess technically the ‘nothing’ is actually ‘snow flakes,’ but hey. I’m not a technical person, so this I don’t have to worry about. Either way, he’s managing to pack them just fine, because another one comes flying in my direction, and hits me square in the chin.

I shout again, and, “It went down my neck!” 

At this point he’s pretty much doubled over laughing, so I do the only thing that I can think of doing. I charge towards him and knock the both of us over into the snow. Somehow he manages to flip us over mid-fall and land on top of me, and shit. This kid could most definitely be compared to a feather. What is with this crap? Maybe I just secretly weigh a thousand pounds, and that’s why I’m thinking there’s such a difference. Either way, he lands right on top of me, still giggling, wet mittens and all. 

He clues in to this little fact concerning very cold and very soaked mittens at the same time I do, and makes me shriek as he presses his hands to my cheeks, and I can literally feel my skin turning blue. I start laughing and trying to push him off, well not trying, because if I really wanted to I could shove him clear across the street, but. You know. I’m going to save myself from explaining just to steer away from the sheer embarrassment factor of it all. He finally moves his hands away from me though, and rolls over and on to the snow covered lawn. I almost want to tell him to be careful he doesn’t land on a hidden syringe or something. And yes, that is totally possible to do.

“Sorry,” He’s still giggling as he peels his mittens off of his hands and sets them on the ground beside him. “I couldn’t resist.”

Is this what my life is going to be from now on? Completely hating everything one moment, and then never being able to get enough of it the next? I mean, seriously. I go back and forth between the fact he’s only a kid, to the obvious weird factor about his whole persona, to how he makes my insides feel funny when I look at him. And I don’t know where I want to end up, whether I want to stop being scared of everything, or just shut him out and not worry about it for the rest of my life. But that’s not it, I wouldn’t not worry about it for the rest of my life. It’d be the first and only thought inside my brain every single fucking day, eating me from the inside out. I don’t know anything right now, except that even though I can feel my spine freezing, I don’t ever want to get up. 

I turn my head to look at Joel’s face, and his eyes are trained on the sky. I think he’s watching the stars.

“What would you do if you saw the sleigh?” He asks me after a second, moving his head to the side a little and looking at me with curious eyes. The sleigh? What sleigh? Is that like a code name for the drug bus or something? I raise my eyebrows, maybe wondering if a couple of dealers are going to jump out of the bushes, but he doesn’t offer me anything else. He just waits for an answer.

“The what?” 

He smiles at me and repeats himself, just saying, “The sleigh. Santa’s sleigh.”

I feel a little grin come over my face, and I laugh softly. He doesn’t seem embarrassed or phased or anything, he just rolls over so he’s more on his side then his back, and watches me. I turn my head so we’re face to face, and what would I do if I saw Santa’s sleigh? What kind of question is that?

“I’d ask for a better present then what I got last year.” I smirk, turning my head to look up at the sky. No sleigh, no Santa, just a bunch of stars gone murky from the snow falling around them. 

“Why, what did you get last year?” He asks, looking curious. 

Let’s see. Last year, I remember writing down something along the lines of a Christmas list. Well, no. My Christmas list was actually a letter to whoever would fucking listen. All it said was, “A ticket to anywhere but here.” I remember writing it. I remember crying and wondering what part of my life had made such a turn for the worse. And I remember when my Mom took it from my room and gave it to my boyfriend.

“A broken rib.” I mumble, lowering my eyes to the ground beside me. Joel doesn’t say anything, because what do you say to that? Oh, I got one of those a few years ago. Hated it. Sorry you got one too. Now I’ve fucked it up, every fucking great thing that’s happened to me today was just totally reversed by that. Fucking, looking for attention much there Ben? Who says that? And now he’s not saying anything and neither am I because I don’t know what to say. I’m tempted to say just kidding, I got this awesome new car, my parents bought it for me and made sure the tank was full. But I don’t. Because I don’t want to lie anymore. 

I turn my head and Joel’s just staring at the sky with this emotionless look on his face, I’ve never seen it before. Great, number of times you’ve broken the kid’s spirit: Two. I sigh a little and maybe I should just go back inside and let him find his own way home, away from the fucked up web that seems to be my life. “Sorry.” I mumble, and he seems to realize I’m looking at him at the exact moment that I realize I’m staring.

He forces a little smile, I can totally tell it’s forced because I do it all the time, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything though. Not one fucking word, no stupid ideas or things that make you want to think he’s certified mentally insane. I bite my bottom lip a little, and lean back into the snow. Just think of a good excuse to get up and leave. Oops, I think I left cookies in the oven. They’re probably burning.

Yeah, awesome.

I don’t know how long it is that we lay like that, me completely in my own world and thinking about everything that never mattered to me before, and him watching the sky. I don’t know what he’s thinking though, maybe he’s wondering if this is gonna be the first Christmas he’s lived through that really didn’t feel like Christmas at all. And I just now realize that he didn’t answer my question from before. I should learn how he does that, side stepping questions without making a massive ass out of himself. Cause God knows that is my life as of late.

“Hey,” He whispers, and I notice that there are a lot more stars in the sky then there were when we first came out. It’s like everything about him pulls everything magical towards me. “You wanna make a snowman?”

“A snowman?” I ask, and I can’t believe he’s even talking to me. If I were him I would’ve started running in the other direction hours ago. I guess that’s the major difference is between us, other then what you see on the outside. He’s not afraid of things that might end up making him happier then he’s been in a really long time. “I haven’t built a snowman since I was like, eight years old and it was a tradition with my Dad.” 

He giggles a little and starts pushing himself up onto his elbows as he says, “Guess we better start a brand new tradition then, huh?”

I just watch him as he gets to his feet, not even bothering to brush the snow out of his hair or off of his back. It’s like he’s so concerned with what he wants to do, little things like that don’t even matter to him. When he turns around, his back is all covered with white patches, and there are little flecks of snowflakes stuck in his hair. I can see them from here. It’s like he’s a snow angel, or something.

“What kind of tradition?” 

He turns back around and looks down at me, grinning from ear to ear as he wraps his scarf a little tighter around his neck. His eyebrows are all arched, and he looks so excited. I push myself up onto my elbows as he starts looking around, and I bet he’s trying to find the best place to build one. I wonder if there’s even enough snow in this shady thing that barely passes for a front lawn, to make a snowman.

“Dunno yet.” He smiles at me, bending down and starting to pack a little ball of snow into his hands. He doesn’t have his mittens on, and I’m wondering if his hands are cold. They look cold. “Guess when we wake up tomorrow, we’ll know for sure.”

I laugh and nod a bit, sitting myself up and my bones are going to ache tomorrow just from the sheer amount of cold they are right now. I shiver and get to my feet, heading over to where Joel’s already got a snowball. He smiles up at me as I near him, and then looks back down to his hands, like he’s concentrating so hard on getting the shape perfect. I crouch beside him and smile a little at the expression on his face. He’s so determined.

And for the first time in a long time, so am I.

…

“Wait! One of his arms are longer then the other!”

I crack up and shake my head, trying to stab one of the two sticks we found earlier into the snowman’s side. We’ve nicknamed him Hank. For a while we were going between Charles and that, but come on. Hank is just funny. Who names anything Hank? Joel giggles and tries to push the stick in a little further, as I bend over and attempt packing the snow a little tighter around the floor so he doesn’t tip over and commit suicide.

Joel steps back after a second and claps, he actually claps. Not like a, “Hey that was a great play, I really enjoyed it!” clap, a, “Oh my God I am so excited and the only way I can get said feelings out is if I clap a little!” clap. He grins from ear to ear and starts taking the scarf off from around his neck, and I push the two Christmas bulbs I may or may not have stolen from across the street into Hank’s face. We figured they’re prettier eyes then just rocks. They’re both blue, and I wanted one red and one green, but Joel said he didn’t want him to look crazy.

“Aren’t you gonna get cold?” I ask, as he wraps his scarf around Hank’s neck. Joel shakes his head and looks around on the floor for a minute, trying to find something, before he spots his mittens a few feet away, where he dropped them before. Hank doesn’t have a nose.

“We have a slight problem.” I state, taking a step back to get the full view of our new friend. He’s a little lop sided, but we decided it’s just cause I’m a bit taller then Joel is, and somehow that factors into the reason. Joel said it gives him more character anyway, and hey. I’m all up for excuses that make me not have to work as much, or redo things that I’ve already done. Therefore I agreed. Whole heartedly. “Hank doesn’t have a nose, or a mouth.”

Joel comes up behind me and carefully slides one mitten on each armstick, being extra careful to not knock anything so Hank crumples to his snowy death. He pouts and backs up a little, folding his arms across his chest as he tries to think of an alternative nose idea, other then a carrot. Because come on. I don’t have carrots. And if I did have a carrot, I’d eat it. Not waste it on some snowman where when I woke up the next day, I can guarantee a group of kids would’ve already come by and relocated said vegetable to places slightly more down South.

“He kind of looks neat with just eyes.” He says after a second, tipping his head to the side like this is some actual, legitimate work of art. I shrug and look at Joel out of the corner of my eye. He chews his bottom lip a little, then reaches forward and adjusts one of Hank’s light bulbs.

“He can’t breathe or eat stuff though.” I state. Joel nods, because obviously that’s a life altering fact right there, and sighs again. “Maybe we can get a carrot in the morning. No stores are open right now I don’t think.”

“I don’t think they are either.” He pauses, then leans forward and pats Hank on the top of his head. “Sorry, pal. We tried. You’re pretty cool though.” A giant snort comes out of him suddenly, and he starts cracking up, looking up at me with like, half closed eyes because he’s giggling so hard. “Cool, get it? I didn’t even mean to say it, that’s awesome. You’re pretty cool, Mr. Hank the Snowman. Cool, cold, snow?”

I laugh and shake my head, nodding because yeah, I do get it. And it’s bad, but really, really funny at the same time. Because who laughs that hard at a shitty joke like that? I guess that wouldn’t even classify as a joke, it’s more of a pun. 

Joel’s still laughing when I start heading back towards the front door of my apartment, bringing a hand up to cover my mouth as I yawn and drop myself down onto the bottom stair. I lean back, watching as Joel adjusts Hank’s arm once more before he turns around and looks at me. A smile comes across his face, and I have to smile back. I don’t even care that I can’t help it anymore.

…

“Wow, I didn’t even realize it was so late.” He yawns, leaning back and resting his elbows on one of the steps above him. I turn my head and my eyes are all droopy I’m sure, and I feel so run down and tired, but I don’t want to go back in and go to sleep. I want to sit out here, under the God damned stars, and watch Hank and whatever the hell else because I can. I don’t have to be scared about anyone beating me up, or saying the wrong thing, or thinking something I shouldn’t. “I should probably get going.”

I force a little smile as he stretches his arms above his head and looks over towards the road, and we probably look like two certified mentally insane patients, or drug addicts. Sitting outside in the freezing cold, covered in snow in the early hours of Christmas morning. But I don’t even fucking care, and that’s a real big break through for me.

Joel sits himself up and brushes his hands off, and I just watch as he does it. I don’t know what else to do, I mean the real reason we came out was for me to walk him home, but I don’t know. I don’t want him to leave now. He smiles at me again and moves forward, picking himself up off of the stair. I stay sitting down, involuntarily shivering a little because I can’t help it.

“Alright. Well, Merry Christmas Ben.” He whispers, smiling a little. I look up at where he’s standing in front of me, and then he starts leaning over towards me, tilting his head to the side like he’s going to kiss my cheek. I don’t want him to kiss my cheek. My eyes widen a little as he comes closer, and I totally didn’t think this one through, because those fucking eyes are coming nearer, and they’ve got the eyelashes that always have the snowflakes stuck in them. And for the second time in my more recent life, I pull away. I pull right fucking back, eyebrows raised and eyes wide as his face falls. If it wasn’t obvious the first time it happened, I think this time I really did break his heart clean in half.

So I smile. For the first time in a fucking long time, I smile from ear to ear. And it’s not because I just saw some little kid trip and watch as his ice cream smashed into the sidewalk, it’s not because I’m listening to some guy that’s equally bitter as me bitch his wife out in an aisle at the supermarket I work at, it’s because I’m happy. And I want to. It’s because fucking Joel makes me want to, and even though that scares the shit out of me, right now I wouldn’t want it to happen any other way.

So instead of turning around and running inside, slamming my apartment door behind me and wallowing in my own self pity like I did that first time, I reach forward, and slide my hand to the back of his neck. His eyes are shining up at mine, even though his face is so God damned clueless and unsure of what’s happening. And then I lean forward and I do it. I fucking kiss him.

I feel my eyes close, and this is it. This is the thing I’ve been so fucking terrified of for the last two months or whatever the hell it’s been that I’ve known him for, and I’ll tell you the truth. It’s not as scary as I anticipated. I feel my heart beat speed up as he leans forward more, resting one of his hands on my knee as I pull away a little bit. Before I can move away though, he moves towards me and nudges our lips back together, eyes closing as we both just freeze and it’s like time fucking stands still for a second.

I just certified myself a scientist, a fucking inventor, because somehow I’ve managed to slow time down. Forget making up some bogus word for a three-in-one room, this is fucking it. It’s like everything around me is moving in slow motion and I never want to not feel it again.

And it might be the fact that the world has stopped around me, or just because I never want it to end, but I don’t know how long I sit there for, body completely freezing and pressed against cold steps as he stands in-between my knees, one hand on my leg and the other on my shoulder. And I don’t care. I don’t care I’m actually feeling something. Feeling something for the first time since I can really remember.

“I,” Joel pulls away and our noses are touching. His skin is cold, and he’s whispering. His eyes have this light behind them that I’ve never seen before. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

I don’t say anything. I just sit there, my hand on the back of my neck, almost going cross-eyed because our faces are so close. But he doesn’t do anything either, we just stay there, until somehow I manage to get my voice to work. And sarcastic comments, biting remarks, it’s like I can’t even think of anything like that, that could describe this situation. Because it’s crazy, and perfect, and even if my soul is sad and my eyes are dark, it just doesn’t matter because he’s looking at me and for the first time I’m so fucking happy.

“You know what?” I whisper, and he closes his eyes for a second. I slide my hand from the back of his neck, to his cheek, and run my thumb over his eyelashes. I see him smile a little, the corner of his mouth curling up into a little smirk. He looks up at my eyes and, “How about you stay the night?”

For the first time I see a little blush spread itself across his face, and he nods.

“Okay.”


	15. What Are You Scared Of?

“Sorry Ma’am, that sale ended on Boxing Day.” I shrug, punching another item number into the register. The woman standing on the other side of the counter fumes a little, before shaking her head and mumbling something about how horrible this store is and how she just shouldn’t shop here anymore. Funny thing is, is that I see in here at least once a week. “Your total is $15.42.”

She hands me her bank card, not making any eye contact, and I just silently run it through the Interac registrar. It’s December 29th, and the rain has been pouring down outside all day, and all last night. It’s one of those days where you wake up and don’t feel like yourself really. Well, that’s how I feel anyways. I’ve been quiet the whole day, not really talking to anybody or acknowledging anyone until they do so to me first. And even then, it’s just a quiet hello. 

“Paper or plastic?”

“Plastic.”

I hand the woman her card back and start bagging her groceries as she punches her number into the pad, her eyebrows still furrowed, mouth still set in an angry line. I sigh a little and wait for her receipt to print out of the machine, eyeing the clock above the till as it does. She stands there, shifting from foot to foot in front of me until I rip the receipt from the machine and toss it in one of her bags. 

“Have a nice day.” I mumble, not even bothering to force a smile at her. She does a soft, angry sigh and gets her bags from the counter, still livid as she stomps out the front doors. The tiny bell above the door jamb jingles as she does so, and some days I want to shoot that damn thing. It rings what, hundreds of times a day?

I lean against the register, watching customers walk up and down the aisles as I wait for my shift to end.

…

I move the phone to my other ear, holding it between my shoulder and jaw as I open the lid to a frozen dinner. I heated it up at work, ran home frantically so it wouldn’t be cold by the time I finally got to eat it… Only to have the phone ring the second my foot was in the door.

“I’m glad you had a good Christmas then, is what’s her name still trying to lose all that weight?” I hiss a little as steam pours out of the lid and catches my finger. Too bad I don’t have a sink that runs clean water to rinse it under. 

“What’s her name? Oh, Carol? No, at least I don’t think so. She was eating everything in sight Christmas dinner.” I chew my bottom lip a little while I wait for Mom to finish talking. I judge people, sure. But Mom, she does it in a manner where it’s way past the line. She picks the things out about people that they can’t change overnight, even if they wanted to, and focuses on it the entire time. “How was work on Christmas Eve?”

“Work?” My eyes widen a little as I realize what she’s talking about, umm sure did work Christmas Eve Mom! “Work was good. A little slow, but it was Christmas Eve… What do you expect.” I laugh nervously as Mom agrees with me, saying it was a stupid idea to have such a small grocery store open on Christmas Eve, anyways. 

“Oh, speaking of Christmas Eve. You know who popped by to say hello?” She asks me, and I can hear her voice light up. I get a plastic fork from the plastic grocery bag, and try to pry the rest of the paper lid off of my meal with it, before I manage burning myself again. “Ben, guess who.”

“Uhh…” I trail off and rack my brain for a few minutes, trying to think of who she’d be excited to see, ever.

Before I can manage though, she cuts me off.

“Christopher!” My Mother exclaims, and right away I drop my fork and I feel my eyes shut. What the fuck, what is up with the Gods and the fucking pledge they’ve all got with each other to keep my life a living hell. Actually you know what, fuck God. I gave up on God a long time ago. “He came over, thought you’d be around for the holidays…”

I feel my blood grow cold. He’s still thinking about me? Still wondering where I am?

“Mom, what did you tell him?” I ask carefully, not hungry anymore as I move over to sit on my bed. The mattress squeaks and I rest my head in the hand that isn’t holding the phone. She’s still going on about how great he looks, how time has done him a world of good and he’s trying to get himself a business started. He had a fucking business started, fucking flourishing even. Too bad dealing drugs and beating people is a crime. 

“Oh, I told him you’ve got this little job at some grocery store.” She says, like it’s nothing. Like it’s nothing that I’ve been working every day of the past year of my life, struggling to survive by myself physically because when I was with them I couldn’t do it emotionally. I feel my throat constrict as realization sets in. “He told me that if you ever need a real job, he’d be more then happy to provide you with one. He’s a good boy, Ben. He could give you a good life.”

A sob actually escapes my throat, and I have to hang up before my Mom hears. One thing she can’t ever realize, is that I’m in pain. Not even the pain that doesn’t matter, that I’d live through another year with if it meant psychologically I’d be stable again. I’d get beat every day for the rest of my life if it meant I could live with a clear head. I drop the phone to the floor and lean back, laying across my bed. I stare at the ceiling for a long time, until I finally fall asleep.

…

“When are you going to fucking learn to stop fighting back?” He snarls at me. I lower my eyes to the ground, but that just seems to make him more angry. One of his hands grips my jaw, and forces me to look up at his face. It terrifies me, the fact that I can’t even see who he is anymore because it’s like the only thing he’s been feeling lately is rage. He tightens the grip he’s around my jaw, and I feel his fingers pressing against my bone. I feel the skin sliding back and forth from the inside, and it makes my toes curl. “One of these days, Ben. I swear I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Chris, stop…” I whisper, trying to keep my hands in front of my face, because the other day when I told Dad my black eye was from falling out of bed, I don’t think he believed me. My boyfriend doesn’t seem to care though, it’s like he’s purposely pulling my hands away from blocking my face so he can hit me even more. “Chris, please. Fucking… Stop it!”

“I’ll fucking stop when you stop fucking up!” He threatens, and he’s so much stronger then me. He can hold both of my hands down with just one of his. I don’t understand what he’s so angry about, lately he’s started to come home fuming and I don’t know what to do. He says it’s my fault, but I never see him. He says it’s not his problem I put myself out there like I do, like I’m just fucking aching to be his punching bag. I gasp when one of his fists connect with my chest, and the air gets knocked out of me. “One more time Ben, you’ll be dead on the floor! Do you understand?”

“Fuck you.” I whisper, and I can barely talk. Suddenly though, it’s like someone lit a fire behind his eyes, because he lurches forward and gets me, one hand knotted in my hair and the other squeezing around my wrist. “Fuck you Chris!” I manage, but this just sets him off even more, and the hand in my hair tightens. I almost hear him ripping out my hair.

He drags me up, from where he pushed me against the wall earlier, and my toes are barely on the floor anymore. I gasp as my shirt collar tightens around my neck, and maybe he’s right. Maybe I should stop back talking him. Maybe I should stop doing whatever it is that sets him off so easily. Maybe I should just start taking his beatings, maybe I shouldn’t protest when he hits me. It makes him happy, and he’s never angry for much longer once I’m hurting.

“One. Fucking, word. Ben.” He hisses, and I feel his breath hit me in the nose. I close my eyes, nodding quickly. That’s all it takes before he lets go of me, and I slide against the wall, ending up on the floor with my head between my knees. I can’t breathe.

…

I can’t breathe. 

My eyes snap open and I’m looking at the same ceiling I fell asleep to. I pick my head up and look around the room with frightened eyes, half expecting to see Chris looming in a corner, waiting until I’m conscious again before he has his way. I close my eyes for a second, trying to calm my heart down into a normal rhythm before I have myself a heart attack.

I slowly push myself up onto my elbows, and my stomach is in knots.

“Fuck.” I murmur, leaning over, putting my head in my hands. It’s like I’ve got a headache and a heartache all at once. Maybe I should start taking sleeping pills again, they knock you out so hard that you don’t dream at all. Haven’t dreamed much lately anyway, so I really wouldn’t be missing anything at all. 

I bend over and pick the phone up, holding it in my hand for a second as I go over my options. Options, who am I kidding. There’s no such thing as an option when you’ve only got one idea in your head. 

Turning the phone on, I punch in a few numbers, sighing as I look at the clock. It’s too late. I hang up before I’ve even dialed, trying to pretend and make myself believe that he really would mind if I phoned him at eleven at night. I can make myself believe anything. I set the phone back on the night stand and keep lying to myself.

…

“Hey.”

I stop counting quarters long enough to look over my shoulder. He’s there – Joel is, standing on the other side of the counter, with a bright smile on his face. I raise my eyebrows and drop the roll of change, sliding the cash register drawer closed before I forget and smash my hip into it later.

“Hi.”

One side of my mouth manages to curl up into a smile at him as he starts pulling things out of his grocery basket and laying them on the counter. His gloves have the fingers ripped off of them, and I notice there’s a definite snowman shaped pin on his jacket. The last time I saw him was a few days ago, when we both woke up in the middle of my bed, pretending to be asleep so we wouldn’t have to say that first awkward word. The last time I thought about him, though, was when I realized there really isn’t a moment in the day where he isn’t in my thoughts.

“Those are on sale you know.” I point to the stack of macaroni and cheese boxes that are currently teetering back and forth, just waiting to be knocked over. Joel looks up from where he’s re-arranging things in his cart, and he looks absolutely clueless. “Instead of getting five, you can get six for a better price.”

“Oh, I know.” A smile spreads back across his face, and his eyes flicker up to mine. I wait for him to continue, to finish of what I’m thinking is only half of a sentence, but he doesn’t. He just loads up the few items he’s got left in his basket, and then sets the empty container in the growing rack beside my register.

I start ringing his items through the register, carefully making sure that my eyes don’t rise to meet his. We both stay silent for a few moments, until Joel starts rapping his fingers on the glass lid of the lottery ticket case. I keep my head down but raise my eyes to look at him through my eyelashes. He looks distracted by everything that isn’t me, which is fine. I’d rather not be the center of his attention, anyways. He does three quick beats with the tips of his fingers on the case, and he fidgets around for a second more.

“I’d really like to kiss you right now, you know.” He says, like it’s absolutely nothing. My eyes snap up from where they were trained on the cash register buttons a moment ago, and I’m sure my mouth has dropped open, at least a little bit. That was the forbidden thing we weren’t supposed to talk about! It was supposed to be awkward and tip toed around for another week at least!

I open my mouth, trying to say something, but nothing comes out. He grins at me, this massive grin that makes one of his cheeks dimple and his eyes sparkle, before he gets up on his tippy toes and leans across the counter separating us. I feel one of his hands on my shoulder as he presses his mouth against my own, and his bottom lip goes in-between both of mine. I’m completely frozen for a second, one hand on a box of Mac and Cheese that I was about to scan, the other hovering over the cash register.

He pulls away for a second, just to tell me that, “You’re supposed to kiss back.”

Joel stays in front of me for a moment, eyes searching mine and a small smile on his face with his hand lightly on my shoulder, before I manage a stuttery, “I, uh. Sorry.” He just smiles again and shakes his head a little, and then leans back over and I drop the box of mac and cheese. Great.

“Um,” I pull away from him, my shoulder slinking out from under his hand, and he looks disappointed. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head and looks at the floor for a second before his eyes lift back up to mine. I nervously look around, but then I’m left with nothing to turn my attention to, but him. Fuck. I don’t say anything, I just reach down and start running his items through the scanner, maybe possibly faster then I usually would. He doesn’t say anything either, and man. I’m great at fucking situations up. Perfect, even.

“$14.56.” I mumble, looking at the screen and then casting a glance up at him. He nods a little and digs around in his pocket, pulling a twenty out. He hands it to me but keeps his eyes trained down. So we don’t have to look into each other’s faces, I’m sure. I frown a little as I hit the cash register button, and start pulling his change out. I’m biting my lip when I turn around to face him again, one hand extended with almost six dollars worth of change in it. He looks up from the floor and stares at me for a moment, then moves his hand forward to take his change. “Paper or plastic?”

He shrugs, shoving the change back into his hoodie pocket, and wait. He’s supposed to say paper, like always. He’s supposed to say paper and I’m supposed to complain because he’s so motherfucking perfect. He isn’t supposed to not care, he isn’t supposed to stop looking at me.

I lean down and get a paper bag, opening it up and starting to put his groceries into it. I bag his mac and cheese, and his small container of disgusting soy milk – I know it’s gross because I tried it, and a random box of cookies that are left over from Christmas. I rip his receipt from the cash register printer, and throw that in too.

He takes the bag and starts walking away, and fuck. What do I do, what do I fucking do!? I’ve never been in this situation before, I’ve never wanted something like this but been too afraid to get it. I’ve never been scared of something that could be wonderful, I’ve only ever been terrified of my nightmares and the terrible things that would happen to me.

“Joel,” I call. “Wait.”

He’s almost at the door, but he stops. He stops when I ask him to. I start chewing on my thumbnail as he turns around, and I hear someone starting to unload their groceries onto the counter behind me. But Joel’s stopped, and he’s standing there, waiting for me to say something. I drop my hand back down to my side, opening my mouth…

“Are you going to stand there, boy, or ring my purchases through?”

I turn my head quickly and there’s an old woman standing there, one hand on her hip and a stern expression on her face. All of her stuff is on the counter – random old lady stuff, like denture cleaner, and shoe insoles. Most of the health section, actually. I bet she smells like a closet.

When I turn back around, though, I feel my heart drop. All I see is Joel’s back, as he walks through the parking lot. His bright fucking lime green hoodie moving further and further away from me, rainbow striped scarf trailing in the breeze behind him.

“What is your name? What is your name?” I feel something pulling on my arm, someone trying to get me to turn around. “Ben, is that it? Your nametag says Ben.”

“Yeah…” I snap back into reality, and when I look back at this woman, she’s furious. “I’m Ben.”

“Well Ben, would you mind telling me your manager’s name? I’ve been waiting here all of ten minutes while you’ve been day dreaming!”

I shake my head and look at the counter numbly, reaching to get her groceries so I can ring them through. We both fall silent, and all I can hear is the electronic beeping as the register identifies different bar codes. I clench my back teeth together and blink a few times as I push a box of candied plums through the register. They don’t want to go through. Sighing, I move over to the number pad and punch in the item number.

But I can’t get my mind off Joel this time.


	16. Throwing it all up against the wall...

I pat my jacket pockets nervously, hands slightly fumbling as I search for the lighter that I know I put in there a few days ago. 

I clutch a box of Marlboros in my left, one cigarette resting between my lips as I attempt to find the means to light it. I discover the lighter buried in my right pocket, and I immediately bring it up to my mouth, almost dropping my pack of lung cancer in the midst of it. I flick the trigger a few times and a flame finally ignites, eventually lighting the end of my cigarette. I take a deep breath of the nicotine, holding the smoke in my lungs for a moment before I sigh and let everything out. Relax. I keep my eyes trained apprehensively on the wet cement in front of me, until my cigarette is three-thirds smoked, and a bus pulls up against the curb I’m standing on.

I toss what is now a cigarette butt to the ground, and then snub it out with the toe of my shoe as the bus doors slide open and a few people get off. I frown a little and dig around in my pocket for a second time, trying in vain to find the fare I diligently rooted around for in my desk drawer earlier tonight. I find the few coins and hop up onto the short step of the bus. The floor lurches underneath me as we suddenly pull away from the curb.

“This bus goes to Reynolds Street, doesn’t it?” I ask, hand hovering over the coin slot as I ask the bored bus driver. All I get is a small, bored nod in return. I drop the few quarters into the fare box and start towards the back of the bus, where the windows are more scratched out and dirty then the ones nearer the front. I’ve got a good fifteen minute ride in front of me, but lucky for me it’s late out. I don’t have to deal with screaming kids and frightened old women. God knows I’ve seen enough of them today.

I exhale and drop my body down onto a seat covered with bright blue plastic vinyl, sighing a little and carefully tucking my box of cigarettes back into my jacket. Closing my eyes, I lean my head up against the cold window and try to relax all these feelings that are swirling around inside of me. The bus is rumbling under my tired body and in some way it reminds me of the day I ran away; stuck in that train for hours, trying to remember what Baltimore was even like. Had I ever been? Wasn’t that where that chick got killed? Is Baltimore as far away as I wanted to get?

My eyes slowly crack open and I focus on the first thing I see. The back of an older gentleman’s head, he’s sitting in the seat directly in front of me. His hair is dyed black. I can tell because there are these gray roots showing through in some areas. I wonder if he’s got a business that’s failing, and that’s why he’s got a family that he can’t support, which leads to the whole hair going gray thing. I chew my bottom lip a little and pull my head away from the window. Stop thinking so much, for fucks sake.

…

I sit on the curb outside Joel’s house, cigarette hanging from my bottom lip. I’m completely frozen to the bone, but I need to psych myself up, so fuck you. I really fucking need to psych myself up. You have no idea. My hand comes up and I take a drag of my smoke, closing my eyes at the same time as I try to concentrate on how many years I’m taking off my life with this simple action. One at least. I let the smoke out of my nose and take another drag. Three. Maybe I’ll keel over before I’m even sixty.

I snub the butt out against the wet curb, right alongside the other three I’ve chain smoked since I sat down. I wonder if there’s ever gonna be a day where I can just walk up to his front door like a normal person.

Nope.

…

I rub my eyes and check my watch. I’ve been sitting here for three hours. I can totally do this. 

I carefully close the iron gate behind me as I shuffle up his front path, and let it scrape closed behind me. His Christmas lights are on I notice, bright and glowing in the otherwise dark air. I shiver a little, and I think my nose is frozen to bits. I need to get into his place now, if not for my sanity then my health.

Lifting my hand up, I go to knock on his front door.

But then my balls shrivel up and die, and I groan a little, leaning my forehead against the surface instead.

…

“This is fucking ridiculous.” I take a drag of my cigarette, and glance at my watch again. 1:26 in the morning. One fucking twenty six in the God damned morning. And I came over here at what, nine? Nine thirty at the latest? I get up off of his front stairs and drop my smoke in the process, not bothering to snub it out because come on. Where’s it gonna burn on a wet cement pathway? Anyways, that doesn’t even matter. What does matter is that I need to go up there and just fucking do it. Just knock. “Just knock.”

I stand in front of his door, eyebrows knotting a little in the middle of my forehead as I prep myself for this. Forget prepping, I just need to do it before I totally wimp out and end up going home, cursing my God damned self the whole way there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, one, two, three. I raise my hand. One. Two. Three. 

“Just do it on three.” I whisper, nodding my head and then shaking my hand a little. “One, two, three. Okay three. One, two, three.” I growl and suddenly my fist just shoots forward, whether my head or my heart is making the gesture I’m not sure, and pounds against his door twice. 

I’m standing here pretty much in shock of my own actions when I hear the sound of cold hinges creaking open.

“…Hi.” I whisper, lamely, and a puff of white air comes out of my mouth when I say it.

Joel is just standing there in his pajama bottoms, slippers on his feet and a thin t-shirt covering his chest. His eyes are no less then flashing with surprise, and his bottom lip is slightly droopy. Droopy? That’s not a very good way to describe it. It makes him seem like he’s had a stroke or something. And pouty? That’s just absurd.

“Hey.” He replies, although his voice is only a mumble, and his eyes look kind of red. Not bloodshot, just a little around the rims. When he sees that I’ve noticed, he quickly rubs the palm of his hand into his eye and forces a little smile. It’s wavering a bit on the edges, though. I’m sure of it. I feel my eyebrows knot together as I awkwardly stand there, shifting a little from foot to foot. His cheeks look swollen, too. “Sorry. You, um…” He trails off and sniffs, pulling the hem of his shirt up to wipe his damp cheeks off. They’re rosy but pale at the same time. “You surprised me, is all. Come in.”

“Are you alright?” I ask quietly, following him into the front hall of his place. He nods quickly and runs a hand through his hair a little shakily, nervously looking at me before he gives me a second bob of the head. I raise my eyebrows a little and return the expression, nodding slightly – an awkward jerk of the head, really – as I slide my jacket off. I think he can tell I’m not completely convinced, so I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise when I ask him, “…Are you sure?”

But right away he nods, never missing a beat.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” He whispers, glancing at me once more before he walks towards his living room. I stand there for a moment in his front hall, completely dumbfounded and definitely confused as hell. I hear his shaky voice call me from the living room. “You can come in if you want…”

I toss my soaking wet jacket over the back of a chair and re-trace his path, until I’m in the living room too, looking at him. He’s already curled up in the corner of his sofa, shawl wrapped around his shoulders and a box of Kleenex on the table to his left. Maybe he was just watching a sad movie, that’s all. He definitely seems like the type to cry in that situation.

“What are you watching?” I ask softly, awkwardly standing there for a moment before he whispers that I can have a seat if I want to. I nod even though he’s not looking at me, and walk around the side of the couch. But he never answers my question. I look towards the TV screen and it’s just the home and garden channel. When I glance back at him, he shakes his head, and even I can see the way that his bottom lip trembles every now and then. I don’t notice much, especially when it comes to emotional things and feelings.

Maybe I should just leave. I shouldn’t have come without any warning after what happened this morning at the store. I should’ve phoned first, anyway. At least. He’s probably just humoring me. Like I did to him all of those times.

…

My eyes blink open and closed a few times, and my head feels stuffed and cloudy with sleep. I don’t know where I am. I’m disoriented and I definitely think that there’s something pressing into my side.

It takes a few seconds, but after my eyes focus, I manage to look around the room I’ve somehow ended up in. Joel’s living room. The TV is still on the same channel that we were watching last night, and the Christmas tree is brightly lit. The same as it was last night. I feel my forehead crease and I shift around a little, looking from my left side to my right. Joel is leaning up against my body, his head rested on my shoulder. What am I supposed to do now?

I don’t know, but I do know that I need to move before my legs lock up into knots that I can’t untie. I stretch them out a little and yawn, one hand coming up to cover my mouth. Right away Joel stirs as I move, his body slowly straightening and then going rigid as he stretches in his sleep and gradually wakes himself up. A sigh comes out of him, his whole body heaving as he exhales.

“Are you awake?” He whispers, not looking up at me. I nod and then realize that he can’t see my actions.

“Kind of.”

This time I feel him nod, but we still haven’t said anything to each other. Apart from simple words such as those we spoke last night. Like when I asked him what channel we were watching, just to make conversation although I already knew, and he answered forty three. Or when I asked him how his day had been, and he said tolerable. After that? After that, we both drifted off into silence, the air too thick and too awkward to say anything else. And then eventually, sleep.

“Ummm…” I trail off, tilting my head back and resting it against the couch. I close my eyes and when I open them a second later they’re focused on the ceiling. Joel doesn’t move or say anything, though. And this scares me more then it used to, when he’d ask me silly questions or respond to mine with even more ridiculous answers. Because it’s like, almost like he doesn’t even care anymore. And if that’s the case, then what happens now? Do I go home and forget that he ever existed? Do I come here day after day and spend moment after awkward silent moment with him? I hope not, I hope to God that doesn’t happen. Because I can’t do that anymore, I just know it. “Um. About yesterday…” I trail off and this is where he’s supposed to reassure me that it’s okay, that he doesn’t care because it was his fault too. But nothing. Complete, and utter silence.

A few moments of that pass before he softly murmurs, “What about yesterday?”

I pick at a loose piece of yarn in the shawl thrown over my lap. 

“I’m… I’m sorry about it.” I mumble, after a beat of silence between the two of us. He doesn’t move though, doesn’t look at me and doesn’t say a word. But please. Look at me. “…I… I don’t know. But I’m sorry.” 

He’s silent, and I know that he’s thinking. About what, I don’t know. Whether he’s debating all the ways he could devastate me right now, or trying to imagine the right words to say in a situation like this because if he’s at all like me he’ll somehow mess it up. But he isn’t. He isn’t like me and maybe that’s why I get so scared. Cause he can see and feel and touch things that I never could. I shift myself around, and he moves too so he can look at me. His gaze shifts from the couch to my face, and I feel my heart start thumping around inside of my chest. Oh God.

“I can’t believe you’re sorry if you don’t know what you’re apologizing for.” 

What? No. No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to say that. 

“No, you don’t… Um, okay. Stop. Wait. Just for a second.” I mumble, shaking my head. “Please just let me explain.”

He doesn’t move. And I can’t tell if he’s humoring me, or if he’s actually genuinely interested, as he falls back into the cushions and just levelly gazes at me. Like he’s studying my features, and I feel so uncomfortable. Completely put off as his eyes flicker over my face, down to my hands which are laced together in my lap, and then back up to my eyes.

“Explain what, Ben?” He whispers. His purple eyes are faded. They don’t have that gold glow behind them and it socks me right in the gut. I’ve never seen him like this, never seen him as a real person. He’s always been this happy… character that I’ve seen, that I’ve talked to. He’s never seemed broken inside or outside or unhappy about anything at all. And I’m not sure if it scares me more or relieves me that I’m finally seeing it. “It’s pretty clear by now. You really don’t need to say anything.”

“No, I do.” I nod, and one of my hands brush through my hair. This is so confusing. It’s like I’m dissecting my heart and my head apart at the same time and I don’t know what piece fits where. Whether confusion goes along with adoration, or fear sides up against love. He rests his arm along the back of the couch, and leans his cheek on that as he watches me. “Yesterday when you came into the store, it was just…” I trail off and his eyes close for a moment. “I don’t know what it was. It was bad timing. I didn’t want to get fired, Joel. That job, it’s all I’ve got.” I whisper, and my insides are swirling around my body. His eyes slowly open, and he blinks. And then he shakes his head, and a small smile spreads its way across his face.

“I’m sorry, Ben.” He mumbles, voice still groggy. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?... For what?”

He shrugs a little and closes his eyes, a sigh sneaking it’s way from his lungs. The hint of a smile that was on his face not a second ago fades away again, features relaxing as he just lays there. Wait. Is that the end of our conversation? A shrug? That’s all I get now, even though I’m sitting here bewildered out of my skull and unsure about the whole situation? I get a shrug? 

“I’m really tired, Ben.” He whispers, and his voice sounds so lost as his eyes flicker open and he looks up at me. A lost fucking sixteen year old, eyes wide and features slightly sunken in. And I feel like I want to cry, I don’t know what I should do. What’s wrong with him? Why is he acting like this? This, this was me at sixteen. But I had reasons to be sad, I don’t understand why he looks so fallen apart all of a sudden. I don’t understand and it’s making me feel so sick inside.

“Are you okay?”

Another nod. That’s all I get. Just a nod. 

“Are-“ 

Suddenly one of his eyes crack open and his hand move up, towards my face. I freeze, completely cemented to the spot I’m sitting in as his fingers slide into my hair. And that little smile comes back across his face. He lets out a sigh and his fingers brush through my hair, slowly, before he drops his palm to rest against my shoulder. His fingers squeeze there for a moment and I can’t breathe as his eyes close again.

“I’m fine.” He mumbles, shaking his head. His voice lowers into a whisper. “I’ll be fine.”


	17. ...Hoping that something sticks.

“Do you want some tea?”

I lean against the kitchen wall and shake my head, yawning a little as he shuffles around the room and makes some food for the two of us. I’d call it breakfast but it’s already almost lunch. What’s that called. Brunch. Anyways. He’s got cape fashioned from his shawl and it’s thrown around his shoulders, and the slippers that he’s wearing are slightly too big on his feet - so he tends to shuffle more then actually walk. A hand comes up to cover a yawn of his own as he pulls the fridge door open, eyes slightly bleary as he starts rooting around for a bottle of milk.

“Did you not sleep very well last night or something?” I ask carefully, pushing away from the wall and going over to where he’s loading all of our stuff onto a tray. So far there’s a bowl of cookies, a cup of tea that he’s made for himself, and a few candy canes that he pulled off his Christmas tree before we came in here. He shrugs a little as an answer to my question, a hand coming up to itch the back of his neck as he pours some milk into his tea. “Are you sure? I mean…”

I trail off and let my question hang in the air, but all he does is tilt his head towards me a little and he manages to force a half-smile. I return the expression, hesitate, and then gently rest my hand on his shoulder.

“You know… You can…” I chew my lip and pause, watching as he just looks up at me. “You can tell me, you know.”

He shakes his head, carefully picking up the tray and heading towards the living room. I stand there, in the middle of his kitchen, until he tells me that he’s fine, and not to worry, over his shoulder. I can see it in his eyes, though. He’s one of those people you can just read like a book, and even though it scares me to death, he’s let me in. Which makes it even more visible. Too bad I just can’t throw my fears into the wind and say “fuck it.”

Unfortunately I can’t fix life-changing problems over night. I’ve tried. And failed.

I head into his living room and sit down on the couch beside him, as he sets the tray on the coffee table and reaches for the TV remote. He starts flipping through the channels casually, even though I really don’t know what he thinks he’s going to find at eleven in the morning on a weekday. Other then infomercials and softcore sex line commercials on the higher channels, anyway. I called one of those once, probably when I was about his age. Didn’t get too far though, when a woman that sounded far too butch to actually BE a woman answered, I freaked and hung up quickly. Never went back down that road again.

“What do you want to watch? An infomercial for Dr. Ho, or a marathon of Taxi?”

I barely debate the options before I answer, “Dr. Ho.”

…

“I have to go to work.” I sigh, shifting forward a little. We’ve been sitting on this damn couch for a good three hours now, it’s disgusting. I’m sure my ass print is actually in the cushions. I really fucking don’t want to go. Today especially. I feel just, really run down and tired, and I wish I could just chill on Joel’s couch all day. But I can’t, cause if I don’t go today I won’t be able to pay my rent this month. Not that it actually makes a difference, living in a cold and damp apartment barely beats living outside. At least if I was homeless I’d have a couple extra hundred bucks in my pocket. Wishful thinking, right?

I start pulling myself up off the couch, and it’s one of those that you completely sink down into and it takes you forever and a day to get back up. When I was a baby, my Mom put me down for a nap on one kinda like this, and somehow I managed to roll over and get wedged between the cushions. She said when she found me she thought I had suffocated, but I was asleep. Not an exciting story. Sorry.

“What time do you work until?” He asks, looking up at me as I get to my feet.

I shrug.

“Probably eight or nine. I usually always work overtime.”

He nods and brings a hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumb nail a little as we just look at each other. After a moment I clear my throat and look towards the door, an awkward feeling settling over the both of us again. Cause what do we do now? Does he say okay cool I’ll see you later, or does he ask me if I’m coming back, do I wonder if he even wants me back, or do I kiss him and why does everything have to be so confusing. I sigh and shake my head.

“Okay, I’ll see you later then.”

He nods.

…

I bend over and pick up another can of peas, slowly moving back to stack them up on the shelf. I hate this, it’s the worst part of my job. I can handle shitty customers and ringing groceries through, but it really does a number on me when I have to do all this moving boxes shit. I guess when you’re not emotionally fit, you can’t be physically either. I’m sure that I’ve got a frown on my face as I kneel down and start stocking the bottom shelf, cause I can’t stop thinking about Joel.

Like. I don’t know. I want to hit this can of peas against my forehead over and over, because why can’t I just get it? Why don’t I understand how many people in the world would wish for this situation I’ve been thrown into. And I’m not talking about the abusive ex-boyfriend, I’m not talking about the shitty excuse for a Mother, or the fact I work twenty hours out of the day. I mean Joel. When does a fucking, Joel walk into your life like that? And why would I be the one who’s life he walks into? Why does he think I’m anything, did he just see me wallowing in my own self pity at the cash register one day and say, hey! I think I’ll strike up a conversation with that fucked up individual.

“Of course he fucking did,” I mutter, none too gently slamming a can down on the shelf before I reach for another. “He’s Joel.”

And of course before it’s even begun, I’ve managed to fuck up yet another relationship. Not that it would’ve made any difference from the beginning, anything like that I’m involved with is always doomed from the start it seems. When you don’t have a healthy image of your own family growing up, you can’t start your own based on such a fucked up reality. And unfortunately I’m only realizing this now, once I’m out of one of the worst periods of my life and almost in what could be one of the best.

“What aisle are would I find the salad dressing in?”

I look over my shoulder warily, and there’s a middle aged woman standing there with an expectant look on her face. In all honesty, all I want her to do is take her stupid fucking shopping list and cram it up her ass while I sort through my own problems, but instead I point over her shoulder and say, “Aisle five. Right by the soups.”

I’m going to be nineteen in two weeks. And Joel is still going to be sixteen. I don’t even know when his birthday is, but with my luck he’ll somehow manage to stay sixteen for another ten years and then I’ll still be a perve kissing a sixteen year old kid when I’m twenty eight. I wrinkle my nose a little at the thought and bend down to get another can of peas, and man. I’m never going to eat these again. Not that canned peas are the greatest tasting food in the world. You know, all that tinny goodness.

“Hey.”

So I’m on my hands and my knees, trying desperately to see to the back of the very bottom shelf, attempting to figure out what the fuck could possibly be blocking this particular row of cans of peas from fitting, when I hear a voice behind me. My eyes widen as I carefully sit up, holding onto the shelf for leverage so I don’t fall over like some retard oaf. I snuffle back until I’m on my knees and look up at the person standing over me.

“Joel. Hi.” I can’t make out his face as well as I usually can, because the way too bright halogen lights that someone sees fit to outfit every grocery store ever are behind his head, and shining into my eyes. I still know it’s him though. Who else would wear what he does. Who sees it fit to put a neon blue sweatshirt on and camo pants at the same time? Nobody but him.

“Hey,” He’s still chewing on his thumb nail. “Can you maybe take your break right now?”

I chew my bottom lip and look down at my half-empty box of peas. I should really finish stocking at least this crate.

But you know what? It can fucking wait. For once, it can wait.

“Yeah. I’ll meet you outside in five minutes?”

…

I nervously wipe my hands on my apron again, smiling awkwardly at the new girl at the cash register as I pass by. That sucks, I feel like such an old man even though I’m not even twenty yet. Like, what do they call that? When you just feel so old inside and like you’ve already seen everything, even though in reality you haven’t, but you just don’t care to see more? Whatever that is, that’s what I am. All of these kids come running through this store, I swear we have a new bag boy every week, but somehow I’ve been stuck here for a year while they’re getting real jobs and living happy lives. I really need a fucking cigarette or something.

The door closes behind me as I walk out into the snowy parking lot, and Joel is standing a few feet away from where I am, hands in his pockets and eyes squinted as he gazes out over the road bordering the lot. I tuck my hands under my arms so they don’t freeze off, and head over to where he’s standing. He hears me approaching and looks up, taking a couple steps towards me when I get a little closer.

“Hey. What’s up?” I whisper, and it’s still so cold, I can see my breath. I should’ve put on a jacket or something, I’m going to freeze. All I’m wearing is a cheap t-shirt.

“Hey. Ummm…” He trails off and one of his hands goes to the back of his neck, twisting the short hairs there as he glances up at my face and he actually looks nervous. Like, really nervous. The hand drops back down suddenly and he wraps his arm around his stomach, biting his bottom lip apprehensively before he starts talking. “So, like.” He pauses and his eyebrows furrow together as he squints his green eyes at me. The kid changes eye colors more then he dyes his hair, and that’s saying a lot considering almost every time I see him, it’s a different color. “I’m really confused. And… And I’m just. Yeah. I’m perplexed.”

I smile a little, because who says perplexed?

“Me too.” I whisper, nodding a bit, like it’s confirmation or something like that. He just repeats my action and shifts around a little, pushing his hands into his pockets, and then pulling them out again to fiddle around with the drawstrings on the hood on his jacket. “I’m like… I don’t know. But I… know what you mean.”

“Okay.” He nods, and then all of a sudden he starts laughing, bringing a hand up to cover his face as giggles rack through his tiny body.

“Why are you laughing?” I whisper, because he’s completely cracking up now, his nose wrinkling a little as he shakes his head and he can barely open his eyes because they’re starting to tear up.

“This is so stupid.” He says, after a moment, shaking his head a little. He runs a hand through his hair. “So stupid.”

I nod and look around nervously, cause um, what now? I’m so bad at all of this relationship bullshit, I don’t even- Wait. Wait, wait just a fucking second. We don’t have a relationship. We barely have… We barely have relations, much less a ship. Don’t even start telling yourself that you two have a friendship, much less a relationship. You’re so fucked up you can’t keep a friend for three days, and he seems to be having his own problems that he doesn’t want to discuss. What you have is not a relationship.

“Ben.” He says after a moment, and he’s not laughing anymore. He’s just kind of standing there in front of me, arms at his sides and hair sort of stuck up in the front since he just ran his hand through it. I shrug and look at the ground instead of his face, because yeah. Back at the beginning. Like always. Like always I almost get something, but I fall short before I even- “Ben.” I look up from the sidewalk that’s caked with snow and dirt from so much traffic, and down into his eyes. He sighs and steps close to me, into my personal space and I so badly want to feel uncomfortable and push him away, but both of his hands rest on my shoulders as he leans in, mouth close to my ear. I feel his lips and his breath, and somehow it feels like somebody’s slapped me in the face and twisted around my insides all at the same time, as he whispers, “You remind me of the stars.”


	18. Happy New Year

You remember when you were like, nine years old, and you still used to make New Years resolutions? And every year it would be some complete disaster of a thought, like you were sure you’d go to the moon, or you’d resolve to maybe sometimes eat all your carrots. And then the next day, January 2nd, you’d forget about it. Instead playing with your toys and sending them into space without even thinking about how you were doomed to fail – or burying your carrots in your mashed potatoes so your Mom wouldn’t find out and make you eat them. And as you got older, and those years passed, every December 31st that came along, you’d curse the world because it would just be another year where you sat on your ass and complained the months away, never actually doing anything productive. And it just went on, and on, and on.

And I guess this year is no different. It’s why I’m sitting here, on January 2nd of the New Year, staring blankly at my ceiling.

…

“Yeah. I haven’t talked to her since before Christmas.” I shrug, frowning a little as I pull at the front of my t-shirt. It doesn’t look right. It’s too fucking tight in the shoulders, and way too loose everywhere else. Damnit.

“Ben, just…” My Dad’s voice trails off, and then I hear him sigh a little. “Don’t mind your Mother. I’d say she only means for the best, but…” He fades out and then loudly exhales again. “She doesn’t realize what she says sometimes. And if she did, I don’t think she’d mean it. She just wants the best for you, son.”

“Dad.” I whisper. “Don’t make excuses for her…”

I lean against the edge of my desk and lock gazes with the floor. He’s always done this, ever since I can remember. Like, when I’d come home from school with a B on something I worked really fucking hard at and she knew it, she could never just say it was alright, you know? That same bullshit speech that every parent feeds their kid to make them feel okay. It was always shoving it back in my face, instead of, “I think it’s wonderful, let’s go hang it on the fridge,” it was, “That’s what you get for not listening to me when I told you to check your spelling.” And every time, she’d turn it around like it was my fault. And it just, it sucked. But my Dad, he’d always tell me that she was only trying to help me out. Like, like she was doing me a God damned favor or something. That she was making me ‘stronger.’ But it never stopped the tears, and it didn’t fix the ache inside cause what kind of Mother does that? What kind of Mom doesn’t realize that their kid is reaching out for them, desperately trying to be perfect so that maybe one day they’d fit into her world?

“I’m not making excuses for her. It’s just… That’s your Mother, Ben.” He finishes, and I can’t help but frown a little. Yeah, that’s just Mommy alright. Old, anal retentive, asshole Mom.

“Yeah, I know.” I tug my shirt a little more and then bring my hand up to run through my hair. “Sometimes I just wish it wasn’t.”

My Dad heaves a sigh, and I can hear him toying around with something he’s found. He’s got the same nervous habit as I do, when we don’t feel comfortable, right away our hands have to mess with some kind of object. Clothes, whatever we may be holding at the time, anything. Just as long as we can divert our attention off it to take the focus off of ourselves. That’s what my therapist used to tell me, anyways.

“Try not to think so much, okay son?” He asks me, and I’m just… I’m really glad that I have him. As many things that he does that drive me absolutely crazy in that horrible parent kind of way, there are all these moments that I’d never want to forget. Cause he’s really the only parent that I’ve ever had. Like, my Mom was around sometimes. But she always pretended that I wasn’t. 

“Okay Dad.”

“Ben, just remember that I-“

A deafening knock on my front door interrupts my Father, and I know he hears it too because he just stops. He stops talking because who would come and visit me this late at night? Who would visit me at all? I don’t know anybody in this shit hole town, and even if I did I bet they wouldn’t want to come visit my filthy quarters. I cast a wary glance towards my battery-operated clock, and it’s quarter to midnight. The buses only run until eleven thirty. Whoever it is came here specifically to talk to me, on their own time.

“Ummm… Dad…” I start chewing the inside of my cheek, closing my teeth tightly together to try and take my mind off of the way my heart is racing, completely pounding out of my chest. “Somebody’s at my door, Dad… And…”

“Just go into the bathroom. Are all of your lights off?” He asks me, and he knows just as well as I do who the first person to pop to mind is. Because think of the situation. Think of the fucking background story here, and then put yourself in my shoes. Your heart would be racing and your Dad would be worried, too.

“I don’t have any lights.” I whisper, voice cracking a little as I try not to step too heavy, because the floor boards will creak. One day I’m almost sure that I’ll fall through them, they sound just about as weak as I feel sometimes. And I’m sure that would be an awesome experience, crashing through the floor into some junkie’s dirty apartment. I bet they’d tie me up and not feed me for weeks, and then they’d beat me when they’d be on their lows and-

“Benjamin. Go into the bathroom. Now.” 

I nod even though there’s absolutely no way he can see me, and my heart is in my throat as I start creeping across the room, trying not to feel my pulse speed up as I see the shadow being cast underneath the inch between the bottom of the door and the cheap flooring. I gulp and another knock rings through my ears. 

And then I hear humming. Some fucking random Christmas carol, as another thud raps against my door. I sigh and bring a hand up to cover my forehead. I’m sweating and I feel kind of clammy. If I had had a heart attack, I would’ve been pissed. Jesus fucking Christ.

“Dad? Can I call you back later?” I sigh, hand sliding over the top of my head. I close my eyes for a second to try and regain my composure, breathing still a little more rapid then normal.

“Ben-“

“Night Dad. Thanks.” I cut him off, and I’ll explain tomorrow. He knows I’m not stupid - and if he doesn’t, well too bad. He should by now, anyways. Shaking my head a little, I turn the phone off, toss it on the bed, and then head towards the door. When I throw it open, my eyes immediately go squinty as the hall lights instantaneously blind me. Fucking landlords can’t fix my bathroom plumbing, but they can put a gazillion watt light bulbs into the hallways. 

“Hi.”

“Do you know what time it is.” I’ve got a scowl on my face and my eyes are half closed. My shirt doesn’t fit properly, I’m sure my pants have some kind of stain on them because that’s just always my luck, and I look a mess. Because that’s how it always is. Joel is always there when I’m being my disgusting self at my absolute worst, standing in his bright clothes and wearing his cheerful smiles and snowman pins. And it doesn’t make me as fucking bitter as I wish it did.

And, just like any other time. Joel is standing there, a box under one arm and a smile on his face.

“Yeah. And that’s why I came over.” He nods, the smile going lopsided as the right half of it drops and the left half curls up into a grin. The kid must practice making faces in front of the mirror for hours, to be able to have muscle control like that. I shake my head and push my door open a little more, letting him step into the room. Maybe possibly I want him to come in and brighten up the room because it seems like that could just be one of those things he’s capable of. “Oh my Gosh, I couldn’t remember if your apartment number was #207, #307 or #407.”

He closes the door behind him, and the room is completely shrouded in darkness as I ask him, “Just a lucky guess, then?”

A grin spreads across his face.

“Nope.” He shakes his head a little and sets his unmarked, miscellaneous cardboard box down on my desk. Beside the piles of clothes I painstakingly folded, and the shoes I turn upside down just to make sure no spiders get into them. “I just knocked on all the doors. Besides you, the only one who actually answered was a woman. I’m pretty sure she was really a man, though.” He wrinkles his nose up a little and smiles, and sometimes I think he’s on speed. Like, I really do. He’s just too happy, and after the last week or so, of seeing him just so, so down… It just gets, I don’t know. Odd. He confuses me. Well. He confused me before he started being the epitome of person mixing his uppers with his downers. So I guess I’m really not one to talk.

I tug the front of my shirt down, crossing the room to sit on the edge of my bed. I pick the phone up from where I threw it a few minutes ago, and carefully set it down on my bedside table - right beside my clock. It says it’s exactly midnight, thirty seconds passed if you want to get completely technical about it. But I’m not a technical person.

“So I bought you something.” Joel says, breaking me out of my it’s-exactly-twelve-oh moment. I look up from where my eyes were trained on the face of the clock, moving straight up to lock with his. I can’t see what color they are, not enough street light comes in through my window to do that. Though I’m sure his eyes could light up a room, anyway. Oh Jesus fucking… “You wanna see?”

I vacantly think about the fact this guy, knowing my luck, probably just turned sixteen. Had the little fancy sweet sixteen birthday with his Grandmother’s money and his Parents probably bought him a car. Or the house he lives in now. I never see him driving anywhere though, much less a fancy smanch car. And I guess technically, he inherited the house…

“Sure.”

He smiles and turns around to where he put the box he brought in, and I hear cardboard flaps being un-opened. I’m surprised somebody didn’t steal it, and the fact he went around to three different apartments on three different floors – well, two if you don’t include mine, I guess – just kind of broadens the whole situation. First of all, I’m surprised he didn’t get a knife held to his throat as some random asshole threatened him, and second of all… Well. Okay, I’m astounded he didn’t give up after he knocked on the first door. Cause, I mean. Hey. I’m nothing to struggle for.

“Ta-da!” He spins around with something in his hands, and only after he stops moving, I realize what the hell it is. To my own horror, it’s a very seventies reminiscent lamp – complete with an orange shade outfitted in red dangly beads. It’s gotta be no taller then my forearm, and it sure as fuck looks like a traditionally revolting old fashioned, brass base. Although the dark might be… hiding it’s beauty, or something.

Only, fuck that, this eyesore couldn’t look pleasant if you… I don’t know. I don’t know, but God. It just. It couldn’t. 

“Do you like it?” He smiles, one finger tracing over the string of beads that sits around the lamp shade. They all hit each other and make clinking noises, and… And for once in my life, I have no fucking idea of what I should even begin to try and say.

“It’s… It’s… It’s good.” I nod, eyebrows knotting together and I want to laugh. I want to fucking crack up and never stop giggling for a year, because what? That’s about the only thing I can even try and ask right now. Just. Just, what? “It’s… I have no power though, like…” I trail off again. And this is the embarrassing part. “I can’t afford to pay those kinds of bills…”

“No, silly.” He shakes his head and sets it on the desk, one hand creeping up under the shade to switch the on button. Suddenly light floods the room, and I’m sure I just heard some things skittering back into their own dark corners. The color of the lamp shade makes the light turn all murky and… and orange colored. Like, I don’t know. A rotten sunset. Or, or… Something else that’s gross and sometimes orange. “See? Battery operated.”

“I… I see.”

He picks it up carefully and walks it over to my bed, setting it down behind my clock. 

“I saw it and I thought of you right away.” He absently brushes a hand over the shade. “I really like the beads. I think they’re pretty.” He pauses again and looks down at me, and I’m like, cemented to this mattress or something. I want to do so many things right now but I don’t even know where I should start. “Red’s one of my favorite colors. And orange too.”

So out of all of these things that are running through my head, the only thing that I can force it to make my body do, is nod. He cautiously perches himself down on the mattress beside me, that half-smile still on his face as we just sit there and look at each other. My nerves start racing again, throat drying up, and here come the rambles…

“I.. I don’t think I have a favorite one.”

He raises his eyebrows and his eyes widen a little, bright green irises like, I don’t know. The color of them reaches down my throat every single time, and grabs at my stomach – just giving everything this gigantic twist around. By the time everything settles, I’m so confused I don’t know whether I should stay or run or kiss him or just close my eyes and pretend I was something else. 

“Oh, like you can’t decide?” He asks, crossing his legs and resting one of his elbows on his knee.

I shake my head.

“…Nah… I just…” I shrug. “I just don’t have a favorite.”

…

“And even though she told me not to, I still did. Moms are always right, you know.” He says thoughtfully, nodding a little as he turns his head to the side to face me. “Cause I ended up getting hit in the knob.”

“The knob?”

He giggles.

“You know.” Joel widens his eyes a little and looks at me. “The _knob_.”

I nod vaguely, my brain still searching, reeling around trying to figure out how a knob could fit into this situation. Door knob? 

“Anyways. So that’s what I figure. Moms are always right.” He tells me, nodding matter-of-factly. My eyes trace around the room, eventually falling on the lamp that now apparently has a permanent home in my apartment. I bet it eats batteries like a bitch, and I’m gonna have to spend hundreds just to keep it lit up, when in reality, I could’ve just paid my fucking energy bill and had real light. I turn my head to look at him, on his back beside me, lain across my mattress. His hands are folded across his stomach and mine are at my sides.

“How do you figure that?”

“Dunno.” He shrugs, pausing for a second. He locks eyes with me for a second before he answers, “I just do.”

…

“Like, if I were to be a dinosaur, I’d pick to be a stegosaurus. They’re the best kind.” He says, thoughtfully looking up at the ceiling before his gaze falls back to me. He smiles and asks, “What’d you be?”

My eyes widen a little as I lay there stunned for a second. What kind of… What kind of dinosaur would I be? I can’t even name five different kinds off the top of my head, much less wonder about what kind I’d be if I were one. His eyebrows knot together in the middle of his forehead and he waits for me to answer.

“I’d be uh…” I trail off and turn my head back to look at the ceiling. The plaster is breaking apart and it’s kind of yellow. “I don’t know. It’d be a cool one though.”

…

“And I figure, like…” He pauses and folds his hands together, studying the sheets that we’re sitting on before he bothers continuing. I rest my chin in my hand and look up at him. “I just figure, that. You know. Once you’re like, once you’re miserable, you’ve got nowhere to go but up.”

He glances down at me, then back to his hands, and then to me again.

“Yeah?” I whisper, and right away he nods. I shrug a little and sit up properly, un-kinking my back as I bring a hand up to itch at the back of my neck. “I think the opposite. Once you’re happy, there’s no where left to go but that downward spiral.”

Joel looks at me carefully, studying my face before he asks, “How come you think like that?”

How come I think like that? Because, and give me my fucking whining rights here, I’m allowed to. I’ve been handed the absolute shit deal of life. I mean, I was born, I grew up a little, I got fucked over for the first time, and then it just went downhill from there. Once you grow up, man, once you grow up you seem to realize exactly how dark the whole God damned world is. How doomed we are as a civilization. And it’s not even something you realize overnight. It’s like, one day you’ll see some footage from a war on CNN, and you’ll think, that sucks. But then a week later you watch some asshole and his friends gang rape some slut, and then it just snowballs. And it’s like, everything is desensitizing you cause you see it so much, but you just can’t stop looking cause it’s the only thing that’s ever around you. And you just realize. You’re fucked. Completely, and utterly fucked. As a human, as having a future, anything you look forward to when you’re eight. Besides wanting to grow up and be a fireman and a astronaut at the same time, at least.

So I shrug.

“I don’t know.”

…

“I should probably go. I have school tomorrow.” 

I slowly sit up so I don’t get a head rush, and nod, yawning a little. I don’t even know what time it is, it seems like it’s been hours. I look over my shoulder at the clock, and after the blurriness is cleared from my vision due to sleep deprivation, I manage to focus on the numbers. It’s four in the morning. 

“I didn’t realize it was so late.” I mumble, running a hand through my hair. I have to fucking get up for work in an hour, God damnit. I force another yawn down, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth, and it makes Joel yawn too. He pulls himself up, scratching the back of his head as he tries to get himself together.

I stand up and pull at my shirt a little. I’m sure it’s covered with wrinkles, but it’s bordering on the so-tired-that-you-really-don’t-care-at-all phase. Joel looks up from pulling his shoes, and smiles.

I wearily return the expression.

“Okay, well.” He stands up properly and stretches, giggling a little when he goes dizzy, I guess. I hate that, your vision goes all blurry and you’re completely thrown off your rocker for a moment. “I’ll see you around.”

I nod and watch as he walks towards my front door, the same front door that I thank him for scaring the shit out of me with earlier. I feel like, like I don’t know. But I feel that standing here is not a good idea. I take a few steps towards where he’s unlocking the bolts I feverishly put on the night I moved here, and touch the back of his arm.

“Hey, wait.” 

He looks up at me curiously, eyebrows raising as his lips curl up into a smile. I chew the inside of my cheek for a second, mentally debating with myself over these fucking internal battles that I can never seem to win. On one hand, I could just say goodbye, and on the other-

Before I can second guess it, I lean in and gently kiss him - awkwardly ending up with my bottom lip in-between both of his, and my nose pressed against his cheek. He smiles, I can feel it against my closed lips, and backs himself up a little, hand coming up to the side of my face as he leans towards me slightly.

I pull away and open my eyes, bringing one hand up to rest against his on my cheek.

“Remember…” I trail off and take a deep breath, forcing myself to look at his face and not the floor. “Remember, when you asked what I would do if you kissed me?” I whisper, and he smiles, laughing softly and nodding. “What…” I feel his thumb brush over my cheek. “What would you do if I didn’t run away this time?”

He smiles, the dimple on his cheek showing as he leans forward and rests his forehead against mine, tilting to the side again as he gives me another soft kiss against my lips. His breath is hitting my skin and it makes my heart jolt and then there’s that feeling again, where everything seems confusing and scary and for an instant I really don’t know what I should do. Whether I should keep him close or force him to leave or love every single moment that I’ve got with him. I close my eyes for a second and think back to all the moments before that weren’t like this. None of them compare.


	19. Eighteen Years Too Late

I wish I had some friends. 

Shuffling along the sidewalk, I realize maybe they’re not as overrated as I thought. I mean. I just… I really need somebody to talk to. And I don’t mean a therapist, I don’t mean my Dad, definitely not my Mother either. Just a friend. Someone who can listen if I have a problem, or if I need some advice, or just want to say something and have it be heard. Chewing my bottom lip, I tug my hat down further over my forehead and continue down the road.

I used to have friends.

…

I check my watch again and it’s 4:12. Back in the day, school used to get out at three sharp. Maybe I’m just getting way too old and without knowing now the kids are going to school at six in the morning and getting out at eight at night. I shake my head and ash out my cigarette on the step beside me, tossing the butt into the garden before I wrap my arms around my legs and rest my head on my knees. Boredom fucking bites.

“Come on Joel.” I whisper, picking my head up and craning my head to look down the street. I see no head of blue hair in the distance. Damnit. “My balls are gonna freeze off. Jesus.”

I rub my palms together, trying to get some warmth back into my hands as I attempt amusing myself until he decides to come back from school. He said to be here at three thirty, and I’ve been waiting like, three hours. Okay maybe not really but that’s not the point. The point is I’m cold and bored and if I didn’t want to see him so fucking bad, I’d just go home.

However, when said head of blue hair does appear in the far off distance, I feel my stomach lurch and my intestines bundle together. What’s that called, butterflies in the stomach? Yeah - I have giant ass monsters, forget about dainty little butterflies. I stay sat on his front door step until the iron gate squeaks and he starts up the front path with a hesitant smile on his lips.

“Sorry I’m late.”

I shake my head and slowly get to my feet, desperately trying to keep my balance and not fall over because the muscles in my legs are so cramped up.

“Don’t worry about it, I-“ My eyebrows raise and knot together in the middle of my forehead as I cut myself off. “What happened to your eye?”

He shakes his head a little, trying to shy away so I don’t notice the large bruise starting to appear around his left eye. There’s already a bag forming under it, skin a purply yellow and there are three stitches holding the side of his eyebrow together. 

“Are you alright? That seriously…” I trail off and he unlocks his front door, still shaking his head.

“It’s nothing, Ben.” He whispers, but no. It is something. Because he can’t open his eye properly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bone shattered in there somewhere. It almost looks like his cheekbone is broken, the whole side of his face is bruised up. “Some guy just…” He trails off and shakes his head again. “Sometimes people just don’t like me, is all.”

“So they hit you?” I ask, fully aware I’m still standing on his front porch, and my voice definitely just screeched a little bit.

“Please don’t make a big deal out of it. I just bruise easy.” He says, but no. There’s no fucking way, you don’t bruise that easy unless you’re fucking, I don’t know. An old person that’s terminally ill. This is a sixteen year old standing in front of me that bruises just like anyone else his age. The reason he’s so fucking beat is cause someone’s minced the left side of his face, that’s why he’s so bruised.

Silence takes over for a second, him chewing his bottom lip and me standing there trying to understand this whole God damn situation. “Did you call the cops? Joel that’s assault.”

He shakes his head and sighs, pulling the strap of his messenger bag over his head. He drops it down beside the front door and starts to unzip his jacket. “It’s fine. I went to the office and they had the nurse fix me up.”

I’m pretty sure my mouth drops open a little bit as I look at him, because what? The office? Nurse? This happened at his school? The same school where he stays in the art room because I can imagine that that’s the only place where he feels safe?

“You mean someone at your school did it? What the fuck for?” I ask, my voice hissing a little bit because I don’t know. Joel’s not the kind of person who should get hurt, people who get hurt like that… They deserve it in someway or another. Something that they’ve done, it all relates back to the abuse and Joel is so perfect, how could he ever merit something like that? He couldn’t.

But he’s turning around now, and he’s got tears in his eyes.

“Ben, please. It’s okay. Just drop it.” He whispers, looking up at me with swollen eyelids and puffy cheeks. And I don’t know what to do. 

I stand there for a second, our eyes locked, until I just whisper an, “Okay.”

…

“I almost cut my finger off today.”

I look up from the TV Guide that I’m aimlessly flipping through, eyes narrowing at Joel, who’s sitting on the other end of the couch. He’s got a bowl of macaroni and cheese balanced in his lap, chin resting on the palm of his hand as he watches me.

“What?” 

He nods and carefully pokes his fork around the pasta, managing to somehow get a noodle beaded onto every prong of the silverware before he takes a bite. 

“Yeah, I was trying to cut a piece of metal in shop class.” He explains, gingerly raising his hand and holding his ring finger out for me to see. “I was so concentrated on not cutting off my thumb, I didn’t notice I placed this one too close to the blade.” 

I desperately try not to stare as grins and then winces, the tender skin on his cheek being pulled in an uncomfortable way when his muscles tighten up.

“What would you have done if you cut it off?” I ask, going back to reading my magazine.

I hear him set the fork down in his bowl, and when I look over, he’s carefully studying his hand – holding his ring finger down as he pretends he’s only got four fingers.

“I dunno.” He shrugs, “Maybe I’d have sewn it back on.”

Joel picks his fork up again and I go back to reading, attention wavering between the late night talk show on the TV, and the article I’m reading about the Top Fifty Worst Shows of All Time. Neither of us bother saying anything, cause what’s there to be said? Yeah, exactly. We both continue with our separate activities until I feel the cushions shift, and Joel leans forward to put his empty bowl on the coffee table.

I look up from my magazine and he’s smiling at me, curled into more of a smirk on the side of his face that isn’t beat. I wait for him to say something - because I can tell there’s something going through his mind right now, but he doesn’t. He just sits there grinning at me, and I can feel my own mouth twisting into something that might count as a smile, too.

He shifts himself across the couch, uncurling his legs from under his body as he shuffles across the cushions on his knees. I don’t even realize that the magazine is sliding off my lap and dropping to the floor, until his hand is at the side of my neck and that smile is an inch away from my own.

“But your-“

He shakes his head and leans towards me, pressing his lips against my bottom one.

“Don’t worry about it.”

…

“Ma I’m not coming home just for my birthday, I’m sorry.” I close the cupboard door and turn on the tap, lukewarm water coming out as I fill the kettle. Joel brought some tea over last night, said it made him feel better whenever he was down. So I figured that I’d try it, too. What have I got to lose, right? 

“Ben we haven’t seen you in a year. This is your nineteenth birthday and it’s special, it’s the last of your teen years. Your Father and I discussed it and we’ll pay for your plane ticket-“

“Mom you don’t understand. This isn’t… This isn’t fucking about me not being able to pay for my plane ticket, okay? I don’t want to. I. Don’t. Want. To. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to see Chris, and I don’t want to fucking celebrate my birthday with a bunch of people that have no idea I exist the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year!” I exclaim, hand gripping the edge of the counter. I hear my Mom take a sharp breath on the other end of the line.

“We care about you Benjamin, don’t be silly.” She laughs, like it’s no big deal. Like it’s no big deal that the first time I say more then one word to her at a time, like it’s no big deal that she fucking knows I hate her, yet she doesn’t have anything to say about it. Other then I’m being silly. Who the fuck even SAYS silly, anyways?

“Look I have to go out, I’ll talk to you later. Tell Dad I love him.”

I hit the power button off and toss the phone across the room. It lands on my bed and then bounces off, cracking against the wooden floor not a minute later. I shake my head and nervously fumble around with the box of tea, trying in vain to get a bag out. Fucking English people and their stupid fucking ideas why is this so God damned hard to open. I rip at the lid and the cardboard tears in two, finally letting me get a fucking tea bag.

My hands are trembling and I don’t know if it’s from fear or anger or sadness, but I throw a bag into my mug regardless and then reach for the kettle, which I got from the second hand store on my way home from work today. Yeah fuck off, maybe it’s not the cleanest of all places to buy shit like that but it’s without a doubt the cheapest. I start pouring the hot water in and I don’t know why there are tears in my eyes, but at least they aren’t dripping down my cheeks.

I really need someone to talk to. 

Taking my tea, I have one sip of it before deciding it tastes like piss water. Then I toss it in the sink and start across the room, wishing in vain I could shut my brain off long enough to fall asleep in peace.

…

“Don’t you fucking take that tone with me.”

I take my focus off of the glass-stained table top, where there are watery circles bleeding through the wood from lack of coaster or anything. Not that anybody around here actually seems to care, I’ve counted a few places where a cigarette’s been put out on different occasions, too.

“I’ll take whatever fucking tone I want.” I mumble, eyes narrowing as I look up at him. He glowers for a second, anger boiling in the pit of his stomach as he clenches his fists together. I shake my head and splay my fingers against the faux wooden surface of the table. “I’m tired of this, I should just leave.”

“Yeah?” Chris violently shoves my head to the side as he walks by, and I hear the bones in my neck creak. I close my eyes and bite my bottom lip. “I’d like to see you fucking try.” I keep my eyes closed, listening to him go through kitchen cupboards and shuffle through drawers. He doesn’t drop it though, he keeps on. “Fuck you’d be dead quicker then I could press a gun to your forehead.”

I turn around a little in my chair, and I’m sure now it’s my eyes that are narrowing. I grip onto the back of the arm rest with one hand, fingernails digging into the torn vinyl surface. 

“Fucking do it then.” I say, my lips moving without my brain. “I’d rather be dead then sitting here listening to you.” 

He stops what he’s doing, carefully sliding the drawer he was rummaging through shut again. He turns around to face me and his jaw is clenched, nostrils flaring with anger. His eyes are so wide and bright and it makes my stomach knot up that I’m not scared anymore. I’m not fucking scared of him. I just want to have it all be done, just let everything be over.

“Do you fucking want me to beat your skull in?” He asks me, an odd hushed quality taking his voice over. I keep my ground though, lips pressed together as I hold his gaze. “Because I will, Ben. I will, and I won’t even think twice.”

He thinks the conversation is over, thinks I have nothing more to say. But the anger that’s been consuming my stomach for years is slowly bubbling up my throat and suddenly I don’t feel so scared anymore. I’m not so terrified of this person – this one, fucking, person that’s controlled my life since I met him – and it sends a jolt of electricity through me. I hate him.

“So fucking do it.” I say, and my voice is clear. It’s not cracking, it’s not shaking. My hands aren’t trembling and I don’t feel like I want to cry. Because I just want to have it all be over. If this is it, then I’m ready to just give up. Just fucking say, you win, and move on. And if that means that I have to have my throat sliced in the process… Then so be it. Anything is better then this. And suddenly I’m not so scared of what his anger might bring me. I’m just wondering how bad the last hour of my life is going to be. “Come on, Chris. Fucking do it.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He walks past me, out the door and into the small bedroom that’s attached. I sit still for a moment, completely entranced with the pattern that the stains make on the table top. I listen to him fumbling around in the other room, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s looking for the same stash of drugs he was just rooting around for in here. 

I tap my fingers against the table top in something like a rhythm for a moment, eyes flickering around the room and there’s a knot of something building up in my stomach. I chew my bottom lip and then push myself up off of the chair, hurriedly walking through the narrow space of the trailer I’m in. Parked in the middle of fucking nowhere because he’s running and I’m following him. I slam a cupboard shut as I step through the small hallway separating the kitchen and bedroom. Chris immediately looks up from his position bent over the suitcases on the bed that we share.

“Fuck off, Ben. Go back in there.”

I stand there, crossing my arms over my chest. His expression changes from anger to complete rage. He gets up off of the bed, and I can see the gun strapped into a holster at his side. And as he corners me, it doesn’t hold the same power over me that it used to. I feel my back hit the cheap siding that the small room is paneled with, no doubt ripped out of the seventies. Very orange and very ugly.

The back of my skull hits next, Chris’ face coming inches away from mine.

“I’ll kill you, Ben. And I won’t think twice.”

I reach down to his hip, where his gun is strapped, and feel around. In one movement I’ve got the trigger pressed against my temple. He doesn’t look scared though. He doesn’t look anything. He just looks pissed off that I’ve taken his only means of protection.

“Quit being fucking stupid, give me that before I shoot you myself.”

“Do it.” I flick the safety off. “Fucking do it.”

He grabs me by the shoulders and lifts me up in one movement, slamming my body against the wall. The whole trailer shakes, and I feel the gun fall from my grasp and hit the floor. A gunshot goes off, and it’s like a bomb explodes across the room as it tears through the bed and out the wall opposite to us.

And while I’m shaking, sliding down on bent knees to the floor, Chris is picking up the gun and walking out of the room like nothing happened.

…

“This has got to fucking stop.” I mumble, head in my hands as I sit at the foot of my bed. I warily eye the clock and it’s five in the morning. Five in the fucking morning on my fucking birthday. Fucking asshole birthdays and the God damned fucking dreams that I can’t seem to fucking shake. Nothing in the world can get rid of them, either. And that just makes me feel so hopeless. Because I’ve tried it all. The pills, the psychotherapy, the therapists in general, reading about it, trying to forget it… And nothing works.

I sigh and run a hand over my face. I have to be to work in an hour.


	20. Happy Birthday!

“Can I get a price check on the prime rib oven roast?” I ask, the mic squealing over the sound system. I sigh and try to run the meat over the register again. I can practically see my co-worker half passed out in the employee lounge. “Price check on the rib oven roast.” I drone again, forcing a half-smile at the impatient woman standing on the opposite side of the counter in front of me. “Adam, for God’s sake. Price check on the rib oven roast!” The mic squeals loudly as I raise my voice and fuck make this day any worse, please. Actually I don’t even think that’s possible.

Not a minute later I hear sneakers squeaking against the shiny floor as Adam runs up with a sales flyer for this week. The kid’s brand new too, and so far he hasn’t made that great of an impression. Fuck the kids go through here so fast I’m surprised I’m still standing.

“Sorry, I was uh…” He trails off and I just shake my head, snatching the flyer from his grasp. I flip to the last page and God who would pay $7.99 for a pound of this shit, it’s disgusting. I quickly punch in the price and Adam’s trying to bag all the groceries I’ve already rung through, and he’s such a nervous little guy it’s kinda funny. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up having OCD or some shit like that.

I finish ringing the lady through, me apologizing and Adam doing so profusely for the price mix-up as she pushes her grocery cart towards the front door. When she leaves, Adam leans against the counter and exhales, blowing the hair that’s hanging in his face away from his eyes.

Instead of trying to make conversation, I head around the counter and start towards the massive Christmas display that’s still set up in the middle of the store. Nobody’s had any time lately to take it down, what with busy stocking schedules and such. I scowl a little and start pulling the price signs off of cheesy Christmas decorations and week-old products.

I hear the bells over the door chime, and for a second I think that Adam could possibly handle whatever just came in, but then I realize Adam is as useless as tits on a bull so I get up from where I’m crouched down, trying in vain to peel bits of scotch tape away from the wall. I look up and slowly get to my feet, heading over to the front counter where Adam’s mysteriously disappeared from.

Ten minutes later I’m leaning against the cash register, humming the tune to “Happy Birthday” to myself. Fuck off I’m allowed to do that total self-pity version since nobody’s here to sing it for me. Not that there is actually anyone anywhere to do it, but that’s all minor details that don’t count. Sure there’s my Mom, but I would take slitting my own throat over having to deal with her again. But no kidding, right?

“Imagine seeing you here.”

I look up and my heart – which may or may not be bumping up against my ribs as we speak – gains about two speeds. Fuck.

“Way to scare me.”

Joel grins at me and sets his grocery basket down at the end of the counter, rolling his eyes a little and there’s that damn feeling again. He starts pulling stuff out, and not surprisingly, all his typical purchases are here. Mac and cheese, an odd amount of cookies, and some milk. 

“You have a nice voice, you know.” He tells me, the corner of his mouth turning up into a smile and I’m sure my eyebrows retreat up into my hairline. “Just one question. What’s with the happy birthday theme song?”

“The… The happy birthday theme song?”

“Yeah.” He nods and smiles, pulling a box of mac and cheese out and setting it on the counter before he continues. “You know. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Ben… Happy birthday to you.” He pauses and laughs a little. “Except that you said happy birthday to me… Me as in you, not Joel me.”

I feel a little smile come across my face as he tilts his head to the side, and he’s grinning too. I don’t know what to say, because for real. What do you say to that?

“You know we have a sale on that candy cane ice cream, since Christmas is over.”

He giggles a little and his nose wrinkles up at the top, eyes all bright and shining and it makes my stomach hurt or something. He just shakes his head and pulls the jug of milk out of his basket. I’m glad it’s been fucking deserted as all else around here this morning, cause so far he’s been standing here a good few minutes and I’m sure if there were customers behind him, they’d be pissed right about now.

“So what,” He starts, completely ignoring my statement just like I ignored his. He rubs his eye with the palm of his hand and his bruise is almost completely faded. “What’s with the birthday song?” I shrug a little because I don’t want to bring attention to the fact that now there’s only one year between me and twenty. And that’s only ten years between me and thirty. Which is as scary as fuck. “Oh my Gosh don’t just shrug at me, is it your birthday or something?” I shake my head but he gasps and, “It is, isn’t it! Today?”

I look up at him from where my eyes had been trained on the counter top, and I can’t help it, a corner of my mouth curls up into a little smile. “Yeah but it’s not a big deal…” I trail off and shrug one of my shoulders, running his box of cookies through the register. He shakes his head and smiles at me.

“Come on, you must be a titch excited at least?” I shake my head and he stands still for a moment, before gasping a little and throwing one of his hands up into the air. “Wait, I’ll be right back.”

He doesn’t even give me a moment to reply, he just hurries down one of the aisles and after he disappears past the first display, I can no longer see him. I lean against the counter and fuck, if my manager comes in I am so screwed. I continue ringing his items through the register though, trying desperately to not think about what he might be doing. Because honestly? I’m not one to put it past him to do something completely insane and unthinkable.

A few minutes later though, he comes out of one of the aisles with full hands. I seriously feel my eyes widen and my mouth drop a little, because what? What is he even thinking? He comes over to the counter and carefully sets everything he’s holding on it, and he’s got this grin from ear to fucking ear. 

“What are you doing?” 

He just shakes his head and smiles at me, carefully opening the box lid of this cake that he’s brought over from the bakery. It’s a generic one, with ‘Happy Birthday’ splayed across the top, cheesy icing roses and all. He pulls it out onto the counter and then reaches for the small pack of candles, and what is this guy on for real? I don’t even understand him.

“Do you have a lighter by chance?” He asks, and I just manage to shake my head. He looks stumped for a second, glancing around before he does a little ‘aha’ and reaches to get a lighter from the small shelf set up beside the cash register. I vacantly think that he’s not even of age to purchase a lighter, but then he’s flicking the trigger and waiting for it to light and I can’t even say anything. “Okay, ready?”

So let me just like, pull out of this situation for a moment and observe instead. I’m standing here, completely dumb struck for words in this ridiculous fucking apron. And Joel’s on the other side of the counter, now lighting one of the nine candles he’s stuck into this cake that only moments ago he took from the bakery. And I don’t know what to say because… Because what do you say to something like this? What do you say when someone fucking sets a birthday cake on the counter in front of you, when all you were expecting at work was another terrible day – just like any other one?

He clears his voice and grins at me, stepping back from where the cake now has all of it’s candles lit.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Ben, happy birthday to you.” He sings, his voice clear and still edged with that fucking British accent. He throws his hands up into the air and grins at me. “Blow the candles out and make a wish!”

I shake my head a little, then decide against it because if my boss comes in and I’m sitting here arguing about blowing candles out, I don’t exactly think that he’d appreciate it. So instead of thinking about it, I just lean forward and blow. Only seven candles go out.

“Ahh! You’ve got two boyfriends!” He giggles, pointing to the two candles that are still lit. I quickly blow them out and try to keep the blush off of my cheeks. Which is in absolute vain because I can definitely feel them heating up. Joel’s grinning when I look up, his face completely happy as he claps his hands a little.

I try to keep it down, but I just can’t help it. A smile comes across my face and once it’s there, it’s like it’s permanent and just won’t go away. Because oh for fucks sake. Need I even explain on this one.

“You have to have a piece of this with me. When do you get off?”

I look up at the clock, and it’s approaching four.

“An hour and a half?”

He grins.

…

“Is my tongue blue?” He asks, giggling a little as he tries to keep his mouth open and show me his tongue. I look up from my plate of disgustingly sweet cake to where he’s sitting at the end of my bed, the opened cake box between the two of us.

“It’s kinda more purple than blue.” 

He smiles at me and leans over, putting his plate on the table beside my bed while I pick around the bright blue icing rose that I’ve been trying to avoid the last twenty minutes he’s been here.

“How old are you now?” Joel asks me, shifting himself backwards so he’s leaning up against my pillows. He closes his eyes for a moment and relaxes, his whole body sagging into my mattress before he opens them up again. Even with the dim light coming from the tacky lamp he brought me, his eyes are still the brightest thing in this room and it makes my heart stop. Or maybe start, I’m not sure yet.

“Nineteen.” I whisper, setting my plate down beside the cake box. He smiles and motions for me to move beside him, on the empty half of the bed. I hesitate for a second, debating my options. Option one. Run to the bathroom, look like a douche. Option two. Crawl up the fucking bed, lay down, and stop being such a retarded asshole. He shifts over a little to allow me more room as I get up, walking around to the other side of the bed before I sit down again. I slowly slide on top of the mattress, carefully settling back into my old, flattened pillows.

“I wish I was nineteen.” He says softly, rolling on his side a little bit, so the only space between our bodies is the gap separating our noses. I want to pull back, I don’t like the way I go cross-eyed because all I want to do is see his face, but I don’t. Because I always do that. And it feels like, I don’t know. It feels like something is my life isn’t right and if I don’t change it soon, it’s just going to give way and I’ll fall. And maybe letting Joel in, even if it’s only a little bit, might prevent that.

“I wish I was sixteen.” I whisper, blinking slowly and he smiles a little bit, shaking his head as he leans in and presses his lips against my cheek. He doesn’t continue but he also doesn’t pull away, he just stays like that, pressing a kiss against my skin until I carefully move my hand to his shoulder. He pulls away what seems only an inch, one corner of his mouth curling up into a smile before he moves forward again, and this time his lips end up against mine.

“I wish you’d let me in.” He whispers, his mouth still against mine and I don’t know whether to trust him more or regret letting him in this far when he says that. I open my eyes and pull back slightly, keeping my hand on his shoulder as he studies my face.

“I wish I could.” 

He smiles softly, sadly, shaking his head a little as he presses a kiss to my forehead. His hand moves from the mattress and slides behind my ear, fingers resting on my head as he kisses my bottom lip, opening his mouth a little bit. I want to pull back, I want to run away and lock him in here so I can just move on and forget about him out there, but no. I can’t, I know I can’t. Because even though I’ve never felt it before, I know I’d be full of regret that I shut him out. And whether it’s selfish of me or not, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

But I can’t think about that now. Because he’s kissing me, like really kissing me, his lips gently grabbing my bottom one and then sucking softly at the corner of my mouth. This isn’t him asking me to give him a peck worthy of grade six, this is me and him and we’re laying here in my bed and he tastes like sugar because of that damn icing and I can’t catch my breath even though all I can do is try and breathe.

He pushes himself up onto one elbow, and he’s hovering over me now and I can’t close my eyes else I’ll see that face that’s haunted me forever and all I want to do is forget him so all I can ever see again is this… this fucking, blue-haired weirdo that I’ve known for two months, and for thirty days all I knew is that he really liked macaroni and cheese. And all I want to do is let him in, believe me I’d want nothing more but I can’t because it’s impossible, no matter what it’s impossible to forget abuse and whether it was mental or physical or both even though all I want to do is shut my eyes and see the same stars that Joel sees, I can’t. 

“Ben,” He whispers, and he pulls away from me slightly. “Don’t think. For one second, just forget whatever it is that makes you so terrified of me.”

I can’t do anything except look at him for a minute, his fucking purple eyes and the way there’s this mole just beside his mouth. The way he has this fucking accent and sometimes I have to repeat what he’s said inside my own head just so I can understand it. And the way I never fucking try his patience, the fact I’ve pulled back what I promise is nineteen times now and he just keeps this grip on my hand, but he doesn’t hold tight or heave me closer.

And all I can do is nod, and whisper a soft, “Okay.”

He doesn’t say anything else this time. All he does is lean in again, pulling my bottom lip into his mouth with his own as he pushes himself up even more, tilting to the side as one hand comes forward and rests above my shoulder. I roll backwards slightly, head against my pillow as he maneuvers himself around and crawls on top of me, both of his legs on either side of one of mine. He smiles at me as he lets my lip drop from his mouth, but then he isn’t even giving me a second to recover before he leans forward again and this time my bottom lip isn’t in his mouth – his tongue is in mine.

He lets out a really soft moan and my hands think it’s cool to shoot up into the air and stay like that for a moment, before I finally realize what a ridiculous thing to do that is and I let them lower down onto his back, one hand on each of his shoulder blades. And now I really can’t breathe and all I want to do is push him away but at the same time pull him as close to me as possible. 

And it’s too confusing. So I go with what my heart tells me to do. I keep kissing back.

…

“Do you have school tomorrow?”

I feel him shake his head, mumbling something about it being a Saturday before he yawns into my shirt. I look at the table beside me, and the clock on it says that it’s approaching one-thirty in the morning.

“Do you have work?” He asks quietly, his voice slightly groggy with sleep.

“Nope.”

I feel him nod and neither of us bother to say anything else, I just keep my eyes trained on the off-white ceiling as his breathing evens out until I know he’s asleep. And only then do I let out the breath I’ve been holding all night long. I sigh a little and bring a hand up, combing my fingers through his hair lightly, his head still rested against my chest.

“Night, Joel.”


	21. Benji vs. The World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last thing I ever wrote for Wait, and I don't think I ever published it on kinky_twincest. Anyways I figured I would post it here for prosperity, even though the story will never be finished.

"Fuck." 

I sit up quickly, definitely still half asleep as I attempt locating the phone that's ringing off it's hook on the... somewhere on my night table. It doesn't really help that my eyes are still closed - half sealed with sleep and half just because I don't want to open them and be officially awake - but fuck. Who phones at this time in the morning, anyway? I mean, granted I don't know exactly what time it is, but I do know that it's early. Really fucking early, I can't even see any light coming through the curtains yet. I grumble and then let out a soft 'aha' when my fingers finally hit what feels like the buttons of my phone. I yank it off the jack and bring it up to my ear, trying to keep my eyes closed for as long as I can as I fall back against the mattress and yawn a little as I answer with a grumbly, "Hello?"

"Benjamin!" My Mother's voice squeals over the phone and I immediately cringe, one eye finally cracking open and my suspicions proved to be right. It's completely pitch black outside. I glance over at the clock before I bother answering her, and it's half past five in the morning. "I was just about to go off to work, but before I left I wanted to wish you a happy birthday!"

I feel my stomach sink a little, and I blink once before I open my eyes properly. I stare at the ceiling and it feels like there's something weighing me down into the mattress. I blink and purse my lips. I cough a little. I fidget. I press my toes together. For the life of me, I can't make anything come out of my mouth. I frown.

"Mom..." I whisper, trailing off at the end and closing my eyes as I finally just... I give up. "Mom, my birthday was yesterday..."

She's silent on the other end for a minute, and for a second my heart soars. I think here it is Ben, here it comes. The apology you've been waiting for since you were born, the first time she's going to feel sorry for breaking your heart. Here it comes, get ready because you won't ever hear it again. But then I hear her flipping through the pages of what I assume is her calendar or some variation of one. And I swallow, and sit up a little, propping myself up on one elbow as I reach over with the other hand and switch the lamp on. Soft light floods the room and I push the blankets off of my chest, trying to wake myself up a little, just to make sure it isn't a dream. That I'm not imagining this.

"Well. That's funny. I wrote your birthday into my planner as today. Hm." She clucks her tongue and then laughs a little. "Well, people make mistakes. I'll just change it now before I forget. Now, where did I put that pencil. Darn."  
 My silence drones on, only this time I feel my eyebrows moving down to knot in the middle of my forehead. Because... because is that even possible? I don't.... I don't even know... How do you forget your first child's birthday? And even more so, how do you not even care? Like... Isn't that when you start to evaluate yourself as a parent? When you have to go by a day-to-day planner to remember your children's birthdays? And it's not like I've got fifteen brothers and sisters or something, it's the fact that she cares more that she dirtied one of the days that should've stayed clean in her book, instead of even bothering to entertain the thought that she might be breaking my heart. 

"You should have phoned me yesterday, Ben." She says carefully, and I feel my mouth curl downwards into a frown.

"Why?" I question, without even hesitating a moment before I say it. I swing my legs over the side of the mattress and lean my elbows against my knees. "Shouldn't you have just remembered my birthday in the first place? I mean, isn't that what Mothers are supposed to do? I'm your son, Mom."

"Oh Ben, don't be so dramatic." She sighs, laughing softly. "I swear. You could've been an actor, had you not chosen to work at the supermarket."

I sit there in silence, blinking back the tears that are beginning to edge past the corners of my eyes.

"Mom, I didn't choose..." I stop suddenly and I don't bother to continue, because what could I say that might change her mind. I've told her everything, every single feeling that I've ever felt in my heart, and she didn't care once. And what's the difference between today and last week, or three years ago when I told her I thought I might be depressed?

"Surely you're not working there to get experience. There must be something that keeps you there." She says, like she's matter of fact when it concerns the subject. Only there couldn't be anything more opposite, because when it concerns me, or anything to do with me, she doesn't know anything. "Mother always knows best, Ben, and listen to me when I say this; you can come home right now, and get a job at-"

I pull the phone away from my ear before I can hear the rest of her sentence, and I just look at it for a minute. I don't bother trying to listen to the end of what she was about to say. Because... because I don't want to. What I want to do, is just... shut her up. For the first time in my life I just want to stop listening. For the first time in my life I'm allowing myself to just stop listening. I lean over and slide the phone back into it's jack, sighing slightly as I do so. Maybe I should just unplug the damned thing from the wall. It brings me no good whatsoever.

The mattress shifts behind me then, and I quickly wipe at the tears that are still gathered in my eyes. When a hand touches the middle of my back, I look over my shoulder and force a small smile as I do so. I'm sure it wavers at the edges though.

"Are you okay?" He whispers, sleep still making his voice groggy.

"Um, yeah." I nod quickly, and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. "Yeah, I am."

Joel frowns a little, but before he can say anything else, a yawn breaks through and he moves the hand from my back to cover his mouth with it instead, shaking his head a little from side to side as he finishes yawning and then runs his fingers through his hair. I turn back to look at the wall in front of me, and I sigh a little. Softly.

"You sure?" He whispers, and I feel him shift his position on the mattress as I study the cracks at the base of the wall. I close my eyes, hand moving over my forehead, as I shake my head slowly. Without adding anything else or saying any words, I carefully lay back down, sliding my body underneath the blankets and sheets. They're still warm. Immediately Joel turns over slightly so his face is level to mine but I just keep my eyes trained on the ceiling tiles, re-tracing water stains that I've memorized from past sleepless nights. A few moments of silence pass between us, and then I tilt my head to the side so I can see him. He's propped up on one elbow looking down at me, and the small amount of light that's coming through the window from outside makes his eyes look like they're endless. He raises his eyebrows a little and I open my mouth to talk, but then I don't know what to say. I just look at him for a second, closing and then opening my mouth once more, before I shake my head and knot my eyebrows together.

"My Mom doesn't remember the day I was born."

...

“You wanna go get something to eat?” He asks, and I look up from my position on the mattress. He’s sitting on the edge of my desk, legs dangling over the side and swinging back and forth as he looks at me. I shake my head and drop it back down against my pillow. It’s not even noon yet, my original plan of the day was to spend it all wallowing in my own self pity. In bed. Doing nothing. At all. “Well I’m getting hungry.”

“Well I’m sorry.” I state, closing my eyes. I hear him sigh and slide down off of the surface, footsteps creaking across the floor until I see the black figure of his body behind my eye lids. The mattress sinks in the middle as he sits down next to me. “Nobody’s forcing you to stay here with me, you know.”

“I know.” He whispers, and I crack one eye half way open so I can see him a little. He’s perched on the edge of my bed, looking down at me and he looks kind of sad. One corner of his lips turns into a half smile when he notices I’m looking over at him, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it so I just shut my eyes and I’m pretty sure he’s frowning again. I peek through my eyelashes and I think I’m right. “Why are you so mad at everybody?”

My eyes snap open at that and I feel everything in my entire body tightening as I ask, “What?”

He shrugs and rests his chin in the palm of his hand, eyes sliding from the bottoms of my toes to the top of my head, and then back down to my face. I prop myself up on my elbows quickly, trying to sit up as he starts talking.

“Why are you so mad at everybody?” He repeats, dropping his hand back down and sitting up properly. He leans against the wall behind the table and scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, I can understand that you’d be mad at your Mom or whatever, but why everybody?” he pauses and frowns, eyes flickering to the floor and then back up to my face. “She can’t see you sulking right now you know. And even if she did, I don’t think she’d bother trying to cheer you up.”

I feel the anger bubble up through my veins as I throw my legs off the side of the bed, the pulses in my wrists throbbing because where the fuck does he get off saying that? Is he my therapist now or something? It’s fucking ridiculous, that he thinks he can come in here and fucking, say shit like that to me. That’s exactly what I tried to get away from and exactly what I know that I don’t need. So while all these thoughts are collectively notching my blood pressure up higher and higher, I come out with the most eloquent response I can think of.

“Fuck you.”

I stand up properly and immediately head over to where the pants I were wearing yesterday are neatly folded up on my desk, right beside where he’s sitting. My hands are shaking as I search through the pockets for my pack of cigarettes. Fuck do I ever need a cigarette, one thing I need and could use right this second is a God damned nicotine fix.

“I can say that too, Ben.” He says quietly, and I hate when people do that. Speak quietly. Because it makes you feel uneasy, you’d rather just have them yell and scream and punch at you and get it all out, rather then sitting there and thinking about it and knowing whatever you’re doing to them is hurting them inside, more then it would even if you got into a brawl. I hate it and I just need somebody to yell at me and scream until their throat is raw and their lungs are burning from the lack of oxygen. I find my half empty pack of smokes as he continues, that same low level to his voice. “It doesn’t ever change anything though. You can tell me to leave you alone as many times as you want but you’re still going to be thinking of me when I’m three blocks away and you’re still sitting here being pissed off at things you can’t change, not even if you tried.”

"What the fuck is your point, Joel?” I spit, looking up at him abruptly and he carefully holds my stare, his eyelashes brushing against his cheeks as he moves his gaze from one side of my face to the other. He brings a hand up to his mouth and chews on the half black finger nail of it, watching as I grab the lighter off my bed side table and quickly light up. I half look at him and half glare over the flicker of the flame, throwing the lighter back down onto my bed when I’m done with it and putting the cigarette between my lips. I widen my eyes at him as a sign for him to say something, to say whatever I know is on his tongue and in his head right now.

“My point is…” He trails off and drops his hands into his lap, looking at me carefully, eyes fading from blue to purple and then back again as the light from outside shines on them. I take a long drag of my cigarette and flick the ashes in his general direction. His expression hardens a little bit and he wraps his arms around his stomach. He’s probably still hungry. “My point is, when are you going to stop fighting the world?”

I laugh quickly and abruptly through a haze of smoke as it comes out both my mouth and nose, looking over at him carefully as I reply. 

“I’ll stop fighting the world when the world stops putting up a fucking fight.”


End file.
